Lipstick and Lies (7 page)

I gave a toneless whistle. “You’re kidding! The Countess, the Barclay-Bly sisters, Mrs. Renner, they’re all affiliated with the Cosmos Club. And you just pieced this together?”

Dante’s response was measured. “The investigation has been in place for less than a week. Up until we thought of placing you in jail our focus was on maintaining plant security and surveilling Renner. Now, about
Mrs.
Renner—”

From the quick profile of Clara Renner that followed, I learned that the Detroit-born hairdresser was an only child, both parents deceased. She and Renner had married about a year ago and, at twenty-three, she was half his age. Recently, she’d been promoted to manager of the club’s salon.

“The age difference could be the reason he turned to spying,” Connelly observed. “You know, similar to what was driving Blount. The need to earn something extra, keep the little woman happy, be the big man about town…”

“What are you saying?” I interjected sharply. “That a younger woman would only love an older man for his money? Clara Renner is a beautician. She
works.
That means the so-called little woman has her own income, right?” I recalled the ordinary-looking man in the ill-fitting suit I’d seen walk past while Dante and I had been sitting outdoors at Willow Run. He hadn’t looked like someone leading the high life. Maybe she did take it all. And what did she see in him, anyhow? What was the attraction? It would be interesting to find out.

Dante’s dark eyes were shiny with amusement. He cleared his throat. “Patrick’s theory is just that. A theory. And it’s only one possibility. There are others. Ideological reasons get my vote.”

“What about protecting family in Europe?” I wondered out loud.

“Nah, Renner is U.S. born,” Connelly said. “From Texas.”

We were all still standing at Dante’s desk. “Okay, so I’m going to the club to explore the sisters’ link to the Countess. What makes you think they’re going to give me the time of day?” My gaze shifted from one man to the other.

“Your cover as a reporter will be ideal there, too. Tell them you’d like to do a story on the club’s facility or its members…” Dante’s hand waved dismissively. “It’s a private women’s club. There ought to be plenty to write about.” He extracted a brochure from the file, holding it out to me. “Society types use the place to entertain and to debut their daughters. There are also private rooms. Members use them when they want to stay overnight or if they need to put up a guest.”

Randomly opening the pamphlet to a lush photo of a guest room, I squirmed reading the testimonial beneath.

Maybe I’d been too hasty in thinking that a stay at an exclusive club beat going to jail.

“What exactly would you like me to get from Mrs. Renner?” I turned the page to an interior shot of the beauty salon.

“We don’t know if she’s involved in espionage, but you should be looking for suspicious signs. Also, her version of Renner’s alibi for the time of the murder is critical. We need to know her story inside out so we can use any discrepancies in his version to trip him up when we question him. Anything related to her husband’s spy dealings would be important, of course. Finally, we want to know about any contact she’s had with the Countess.”

There was a soft tapping on the door. A tall, shapely woman with thick spectacles and cascading chocolate-brown hair entered. “Phone call, Agent Connelly.”

I watched him stroll to the door. The secretary did not budge. Interestingly, her sights were not set on Connelly’s approaching figure, but on Dante. The thick lenses magnified the size of her eyes as well as the accusing look in them. I turned to Dante. Seated at his desk, shuffling the skimpy contents of the Barclay-Bly file, he had choir boy written all over him. Had an odd fissure or some sort of refraction in the secretary’s lenses distorted my impression of her glance? I swung her way again but the door was closing behind her.

Dante launched into the particulars of my stay at the Club, beginning with the credentials I would need for pulling off my stint as a journalist. The forms would be processed overnight, he promised, and to avoid being tripped up by any subtleties involving local customs or personalities we agreed I should represent an out-of-town paper. I suggested my hometown rag, the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
. To build in flexibility, we made my assignment a Tri-City series encompassing metropolitan Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. By the time Connelly reappeared we had covered a good deal of ground, including the substance of the stories I would claim to be writing.

“That was the medical examiner,” he said. “Nothing new in the autopsy. Killer knew what he was doing, death was instantaneous. Around six a.m., like we suspected.”

Dante read his partner’s expression. “
But?
”

Connelly gaze flicked to me.

“Go ahead,” Dante said.

Connelly shifted uncomfortably. “Turns out the frilly thing in Blount’s hand was a pair of women’s underpants. Initials S.B. embroidered on them suggest they’re Mrs. Blount’s. Her name’s Shirley. Taylor’s over at the house now, checking for similar garments.”

“
Underpants?
” I said, blushing at my immodest blurt. “Bizarre… But why is your man searching the house? Hasn’t Mrs. Blount showed up yet?”

Dante rubbed his face. “No.” He eyed Connelly again. “Something else?”

“Something was written on the garment. In blood.” Dante and I stared. “Can’t say whose it is yet—lab’s doing more tests—but the message was ‘Bye baby.’”

Chapter Six

I read about the Teatime Enrichment Program in an events calendar I found in my room and decided to pop in, hoping that I might bump into Kiki Barclay-Bly, the Enrichment Program committee chair.

Today’s presentation, “Birds: Their Beauty and Their Song,” was billed as an afternoon with Mrs. Miles Worcester singing bird songs illustrative of readings by Mrs. Peter Karp. The performance was already underway when I arrived. I ducked into the last row, delighted to find a seat near the entrance. About forty club members had turned out for the affair, held in the Fourth Floor Lounge. We sat in folding chairs facing one of the room’s two fireplaces. Around us, tall, wainscoted walls were hung with brass sconces and huge oil paintings of misty landscapes and oriental vases filled with brightly colored flowers.

This new segment of my assignment, while a drain on my social skills, had a positive side. Before leaving FBI headquarters I was asked to relinquish my B-4 bag in favor of a larger piece of luggage filled with ensembles suitable for my mission. Whoever had orchestrated the wardrobe had stellar taste. While I had always preferred wearing slacks, who could knock being swathed in a dress made of lush silk?

My view of the act was partially blocked by the backs of well-coifed hair colored in various hues of gray. I shifted and panned the audience, looking for a match to the mug shots I’d seen in Dante’s office. The photos were twenty years old and Barclay-Bly would have aged, but I didn’t see anyone even remotely resembling her.

Worcester and Karp completed their number. A moment of silence was followed by a delicate fluttering noise as the audience members, most of them wearing gloves, applauded.

“Ladies, ladies, may I have your attention, please,” a syrupy voice pleaded from the dais. The buzz of whispered conversations quieted. “It has been a delight to share our interpretations with you. We thank you for coming. By request, Jungle Birds will be our final number.”

The performers took a moment to arrange their new material, giving me the chance to observe the women knitting Christmas stockings in the rows around me. The faint click-clicking of their metal needles had been going nonstop since I’d settled in my chair. A notice in the events calendar had urged members of the Stocking Drive Committee to bring their finished products, stockings which would be sent to our troops overseas, to the group’s next meeting. I presumed these women were the designated knitters, clicking to meet their deadline.

My gaze shifted back to Mrs. Karp, a tall, gaunt woman with wire-rimmed glasses, who had begun reading a poem describing bird sightings on a jungle walk. Next to her, Mrs. Worcester, a full-figured woman of sixty or so, whistled and peeped through puckered lips. Having just recited the line, “in awe of the macaw,” Karp paused. Worcester took off on a riff, croaking “cawww-cawww-ca-ca-cawww,” borrowed from, I would have sworn, the Beer Barrel Polka.

I choked back a laugh. Desperate for a distraction, my glance slid to the woman seated at the far end of my otherwise empty row. A low chuckle had escaped her lips, and besides a kindred sense of humor, I was intrigued by her sense of style. Her ink-black hair was pulled back and wrapped into a twisted knot at the nape of her neck. The dark color, striking against the creamy tone of her skin, seemed all the more distinct because of a lone circle of white near her temple. Her eyebrows, though, were her signature feature. Thick and dark, they grew with such abandon they nearly met in the center.

I recalled seeing another pair of eyebrows, exaggerated and painted to resemble a flying bat, on the surrealist artist Frida Kahlo, in the self-portrait Uncle Chance had on display in his shop. Flaunting such fanciful, prominent eyebrows suggested a rare breed, I thought. Most women would pluck them, especially since pencil-thin, carefully arched eyebrows were all the rage these days. But Miss Kahlo, and now this woman down the aisle, had decided not to conform. It showed an acceptance of self that I admired.

The bird singer hit a sour note. Another memory catapulted free. A family photo, capturing the Barclay-Bly sisters at a young age, had accompanied one of the yellowed clippings in Dante’s file. The girls’ features were fuzzy, but Kiki’s sister definitely had thick eyebrows. Could it be?

Blessedly, my enrichment lesson ended. A round of restrained clapping followed. Spectators left their chairs and began mingling, their varied conversations filling the air with pockets of bubbly sounds. I rose and quickly side-stepped down the aisle. “Hi, Pucci Lewis,” I said extending my hand.

The woman’s handshake was relaxed. Her eyes sparkled with merriment. “You seemed to enjoy the program,” she said, smiling and adding in a kind of slurred aside, “For the birds if you as-shk me.”

My fellow critic patted the chair next to hers. Dropping to the seat I passed through a cloud of sherry. I had noticed a decanter, surrounded by tiny glasses, on the sideboard near the entrance when I arrived. Tempted, I’d resisted, whisking a cup and saucer from a silver tea service instead. This woman apparently had not shown such restraint. Besides the nearly drained glass she twirled in her hand, a matching one, now empty, stood on the floor near her foot.

“The program says Worcester and Karp were brought back by popular demand,” she whispered, leaning close, the aperitif’s essence floating toward me on her breath. “But it’s not true. Events having to do with flowers or our feathered friends are always held in the spring, not the fall.”

There was a rule about wearing white after Labor Day, too. Who cared? I was at the club to learn about the person charged with selecting the speakers. “But that’s the Enrichment Program chair’s responsibility, isn’t it? What was she thinking?”

The thick eyebrows merged into a singular dark line. “It had nothing to do with her. The chair is also running for club president. Certain members want her out of the race. A first step was overriding her at the committee level by insisting that the bird program go on as this month’s event.” My new cohort paused to smile through clenched teeth. Coolish nods were exchanged as a trio of women, their fur stoles dangling over their arms, sauntered past.

“Mrs. Preston Rice, Mrs. Colburn Standish, Mrs. Charles Horton Metcalf,” she confided once the threesome had passed. “The enemy.” I must have looked puzzled. “They’re part of the group trying to sabotage my sister’s bid for club president,” she said.

“Ahh, club politics. Not my bailiwick.”

“Mine neither,” she laughed. “Wouldn’t have expected Kiki to get so involved, but growing up she’d always loved being in the eye of the hurricane.” She shrugged. “Maybe this is a manis-fi-fi-sta-shion.”

While the woman struggled to unslur the word, I basked in my victory. I was swapping tittle-tattle with Dierdre Barclay-Bly, the sister of my mark, who was a mark as well.

“The committee chair, Miss Kiki Barclay-Bly, is your sister?” I asked, testing to be sure.

“Yes, that’s right. Well, now she’s a
Mrs
. Mrs. Anastase Andreyevich Volodymyr Vivikovsky.” She stumbled over the name, but laughed cheerily. “Quite a mouthful, isn’t it? It’s why we call him V-V. And why Kiki prefers keeping our family name. Simpler, don’t you know.”

I managed to keep my composure while she belatedly introduced herself, imploring, “Please just call me Dee.”

I scanned the small conversational cliques again. “I came to the program hoping to meet your sister. Maybe talk to her about the Book Faire. Is she here?”

“Sorry, no. Kiki didn’t sanction this event, remember? I only came myself to get a sense of the movement swelling against her.” Dee paused. “I’m sorry, why did you say you wanted to meet her?”

“I didn’t.” I smiled. “I’m a reporter from the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
. Here on assignment.”

Dee swirled the last drop of sherry in her glass and drank it down. Her eyes, wary now, met mine over the rim of her glass. “Oh?”

“Don’t worry,” I added hurriedly. “My assignment has nothing to do with club politics. I’m the paper’s Women in War Work columnist. I write vignettes on the jobs women are doing on the home front, filling in for the men.”

Dee sighed. “Ah, you’re a career woman. How fortunate for you to have found something fulfilling. Something other than a man…”

I frowned, straining to understand her final comment. And why did she sound so bleak? “Well, yes. But I still might only be an office girl if it weren’t for these times,” I said truthfully. “And being a reporter has been quite the boon. I’ve been able to learn firsthand what women are capable of doing, given the chance.”

I ran through the short list of working stiffs I’d interviewed, including riveters, welders, and assembly line inspectors, adding, “An All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League player and the country’s first woman air traffic controller were centerpieces of recent columns.”

Dee looked impressed. “An air traffic controller? Ha-cha-cha.”

I smiled. “I enjoy covering the unusual. It’s what grabs me, and what I like to think draws my readers.”

Dee’s voice brimmed with curiosity now. “So why are you in Detroit? And why do you want to speak with my sister?”

I shrugged. “My editor’s idea. A segment of the paper’s readership, according to him a very large, very vocal segment, is wed to the traditional. They’ve let him know they’re fed up with reading about the women workforce.”

“And he wants you to cover the pursuits of non-working, upper-crust women instead?”

I smiled. I liked Dee. “You got it. He wants to include items with a volunteer angle for a while. In keeping with my column’s theme, we’re looking for projects related to the war effort. Since Cleveland has only two women’s clubs we thought of interspersing a few stories from clubs in surrounding metropolitan areas. I’ve been to Chicago already.”

“And?” Dee’s thick eyebrows arched expectantly.

I had done my homework. I smiled smugly. “I’ve only just submitted the piece, so I’m not sure I should tell, but the Chicago club is asking its members for their costume jewelry. When the collection drive is completed there’ll be a luncheon for members and guests, showcasing the display. The luncheon fee will be donated to a war cause. The jewelry”—I paused, heightening the drama—“the jewelry will be sent overseas to servicemen in the Pacific. They’ll use it for bartering with island natives.”

Dee looked stunned. Then she clapped her hands together. “Marvelous! Brilliant! What a hoot!”

I had not made up the project, nor did the scheme’s originators consider their efforts frivolous or a hoot. Still, I had to smile. I held up my hands in mock surrender. “They claim there’s a need.”

“Okay,” she said, serious again. “So what’s hot about this club?”

“My aunt is a member, for one thing. And, well, there’s the upcoming Book Faire. It’s what I wanted to see your sister about.”

Dee’s eyes narrowed. “Lots of clubs have book events. Nothing out of the ordinary there.”

“But your Book Faire raises money. For the war effort, right?”

Dee’s eyes rolled heavenward. “Hard-ly. The funds are used to purchase decorations for the annual Christmas Ball.” She paused, momentarily slack-jawed. “Say, what a swell idea. Why not contribute the proceeds to the cause? We’d be doing something worthwhile. Kiki would love that.”

Just what I’d hoped. “Can you tell me where to find her?”

Dee reached for the drained glass on the floor. She stood, tottering slightly. “I can do better than that. She’s in the library. I was going there to see her. You can tag along.”

We paused at the sideboard near the doorway, giving Dee a chance to deposit her empty glasses. “They only hold a thimbleful,” she said, raising the petite stemmed glass she’d grabbed as a replacement, gauging its amber contents.

“After your sister’s Book Faire is over maybe she can organize an event to raise funds for more substantial glassware,” I suggested lightly.

Instead of laughing, like I expected, Dee knitted her eyebrows. “When this phase is finally over, I’m going to see that Kiki takes a vacation. The strain has been awful.”

I nodded sympathetically while declining her invitation to join her in a sherry. Belatedly, I noticed the remnants of dull colored stains embedded beneath her nails and around the cuticles of her hands. She took a sip from her glass—“so it wouldn’t spill over”—and noticed me staring.

“They look terrible, I know,” she said, correctly guessing the reason for my ogling. “I’ve taken up painting again. Good therapy, I’m told.”

We left the lounge and followed a corridor straddled by carved cabinets displaying bric-a-brac in porcelain and alabaster. High above us, crystal chandeliers dangled from the ceiling. The library was on the second floor. We arrived at a corner staircase where a broad deep-toned runner descended stairs of polished mahogany. The banister and the paneled wall opposite it gleamed with a golden-red finish.

We paused on the landing. Brushing the railing’s smooth finish, Dee chortled softly. “When Kiki and I were young, we lived in a house with a staircase exactly like this. One time we borrowed Mother’s silver trays and used them as toboggans. Bumped and bounced our way down each and every step.”

I regarded the steep downward pitch. “You’re kidding. And you lived to talk about it?”

Dee laughed with delight. “Sure. Big trays, little girls. Our elbows, maybe a few other parts, were bruised, but no broken bones. The trays suffered the worst of the battering. Mother retired them afterwards, I think.”

“She must have been furious.”

Dee looked puzzled. “No, Mother was never upset. Thought it was amusing, probably.” She smiled at the disbelief on my face. “It’s true. Mother adored us. In her eyes, we could do no wrong.” Her hand smoothed the banister again. The ritual, maybe the recollections, seemed to sober her. “Many times, as an adult, I’ve wondered if somehow things would have turned out better if we’d been taken to task now and then.”

“What do you mean?”

Dee hesitated, seeming to consider what she should tell me. “Earlier you said that as a reporter you like to dig for the unusual. In her heyday Kiki liked going against the grain, too. By doing nothing to rein her in, our parents, I’m afraid, paid a dear price in the end.”