The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries)
Read The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries) Online
Authors: Angela M. Sanders
Tags: #Mystery
The Lanvin Murders
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
This is a Widow’s Kiss book. For information, contact Widow’s Kiss, P.O. Box 82488, Portland, OR 97282 or
www.widowskiss.com
.
Copyright © 2014 Angela M. Sanders
All rights reserved.
For everyone who hazards the bins at thrift shops and flips lovingly through the racks at vintage clothing stores to find that one-in-a-million chiffon cocktail dress or pair of patent leather mules: You look fabulous, darlings.
Joanna Hayworth’s fingers dipped into silver-brown fur. She eased the heavy coat out of its plastic bag and laid it over the bench in the middle of her vintage clothing store.
Her eyes widened. It couldn't be, could it?
She lifted her gaze to the elderly woman standing across from her. “Where did you get this?”
“Oh, I've had it for a while,” Marnie said in a voice roughened by cigarettes.
Red leather barely a palm’s width encircled the fur coat’s low waist and cuffs. Definitely 1930s. Joanna’s heart began to beat faster. She pulled the coat open. Not the original lining, but nicely done. Holding her breath, she opened the garment further, showing the label sewn inside the collar. Yes, there it was. The words “Jeanne Lanvin” and the tiny image of a mother and child dancing. A real pre-war Lanvin coat, here in her store. Amazing.
“You’ve never brought in something like this to sell before. The truth, Marnie. Where did you get it?”
“What? An old boyfriend gave it to me. I never wore it much—it didn't fit me that great. Doesn't matter now anyway, he's dead.” Marnie lost focus for a moment, then returned her attention to the business at hand. “So, do you think it’s worth anything?”
“It's a little beat up, or I'd say you should try to sell it at auction. You could probably get more online than I can pay you.”
“I don't care about that, I just need the cash.”
Typical. As far as Joanna could tell, Marnie's retirement consisted of a house an old lover bought for her back in her heyday as a showgirl—more than fifty years ago— and her wardrobe, which she was selling to Tallulah’s Closet by the bag load.
“I've got more things by the door. I—” The older woman started coughing, a deep cough that wracked her small body.
“Oh Marnie, sit down. You really should see a doctor. Want a drink of water?”
Marnie took deep breaths and put a hand to her chest.
“Just sit there. I’ll get the bag.”
“I’m fine,” she said when she could finally speak. “Doctor. Ha. Anyway, you’re the one who should be seeing someone, and I’m not talking about any doctor, either.”
Marnie would change the subject, and she would have to get personal about it. But Joanna had long figured out how to navigate her crankier moods. If she wasn’t telling Joanna to get out more, she was putting down the store’s decor, telling her the tiki bar she repurposed as a cashier’s stand was tacky, or that the chipped chandeliers, lovingly gathered at estate sales, should match.
“I know. I read too much, am too set in my ways, all I care about is old clothes, blah blah blah.” Joanna pulled open the new bag of clothes. “What else did you bring?”
After the Lanvin coat, visions of wasp-waisted dinner suits and Schiaparelli gowns filled Joanna’s head. Her eye caught a corner of pink chiffon that looked promising. She pulled a peony-colored cocktail dress from the bag, shaking it by the shoulders to smooth its wrinkles. Definitely a keeper. Doris Day might have worn a dress like this on the town with Rock Hudson. Doris would have carried a white patent leather clutch and worn matching kitten heels—not too high, she was tall—with a bow at the toes. The rest of the clothes in the bag were 1960s day wear: cotton blouses in pastels and flower-patterned shifts.
She wasn't going to get rich running a vintage clothing store, but the excitement of sorting through a rack of dresses at an estate sale or digging into a bin of clothes at a thrift store made it all worth it. She loved laying a cotton sundress over a chair and imagining its original life on a woman who rode in fin-tailed convertibles. A suit with padded shoulders and wool the color of a sunset brought to mind courthouse weddings during the war, when the bride would have pinned a gardenia on her suit jacket. She marveled at the stacks of gloves, still white and so small, that people brought in from their grandmother's closets. There was so much grace in the past. So much elegance.
“Wake up. I'm talking to you.” Marnie nodded at the box. “Well, what do you think?”
Joanna did a quick calculation. The dry cleaning bills would be high. “I can give you a hundred dollars for the lot, including the coat.”
“Great.” Marnie stood, stone-faced.
“I’ll write you a check—”
“No. Cash. Please.”
That figures, Joanna thought. Marnie seemed to live on a strictly cash basis, but so many people used credit cards that she’d be lucky if there were fifteen dollars in the till. “Could you come back tomorrow? I have to be at the store all day today, but I'll go to the bank in the morning.”
“All right. Tomorrow, then.” She fished in her shoulder bag, drawing out a pack of cigarettes. “You like that coat, don't you?”
“It's gorgeous.” Nineteen-thirties Lanvin. She still couldn’t believe her luck.
Marnie’s expression softened. “It means a lot to me, too. The man who gave it to me, he was special. Not like the rest.”
“I wonder where he got it?” He couldn’t have bought it for Marnie new. She would have been a baby when Lanvin showed the coat.
“Don’t know. He didn’t have a lot of money—at least, not then. The coat belonged to someone in his family.” She touched the red elbow patch with reverence. “See that? He told me it’s antelope.”
Marnie had never been sentimental about the clothes she’d sold before. “Are you sure you’re ready to give it up? Maybe you’d like to keep it.” Joanna drew a finger down the coat’s fox sleeve. Even owning the Lanvin for a few minutes was something.
Marnie shook her head. “No, no. I’ve kept it a good long time. Now I want you to have it. Make it earn a little for the store.”
“I’m doing all right. But thank you, that’s so sweet.”
Marnie turned toward the front window. “The neighborhood’s picking up, anyway. I see that the theater is for rent.”
Portland’s Clinton Street neighborhood had taken a decided turn for the better in the few years Joanna had owned Tallulah’s Closet. The aluminum awning place had become a video store renting cult movies, and a restaurant touting local, organic food had replaced the dictaphone repair shop.
Marnie lay a dry hand on Joanna’s. “You stick with it, honey. I just want to see you do well, you know.” She leaned forward and whispered, “You’re family.”
Surprise—and warmth—washed over Joanna. Hugging Marnie was like embracing a sack of bird bones. “That means a lot to me. Thank you.”
The older woman stepped away, looking down. “Someday I’ll tell you more about him, the man who gave me the coat.”
“I’d like that.”
Marnie paused as if to say something else, then seemed to change her mind. “Tomorrow, then.” She stepped to the sidewalk and lit her cigarette.
Joanna returned to the Lanvin coat and touched its collar. It was going to need a good airing out to shed the cigarette smoke. Despite the August heat, she decided to display it in the shop's front window. Before dressing the mannequin, she went to the stereo and put on Mel Tormé. People kept telling her she should subscribe to some kind of streaming music service, but she didn’t see the point when she had stacks of records and a perfectly good turntable. She wasn’t planning to give up her rotary phone or handwritten receipts, either.
While Tormé sang “It’s Too Darned Hot,” she pulled a pale blue satin 1930s nightgown from the racks and slid it over the mannequin's body, then clipped a quadruple strand of Czech crystals around its neck. Finally she draped the Lanvin coat over the mannequin's shoulders.
She boosted the mannequin onto the platform at the front window, then went outside to survey her work. Not bad, she thought. If I were Jean Harlow, I'd be intrigued. She couldn't picture Marnie wearing the coat—it would dwarf her. Marnie seemed to have shrunk even in the past year.
The coat sat slightly crooked on the mannequin's shoulders. She stepped back up on the platform and adjusted the hem, straightening the fox trim. As she tugged, she heard a soft “plink.” A small brass key had fallen through the coat's frayed lining onto the floor.
She turned the key in her palm. “U. S. Bank” was engraved on it. Probably a safe deposit box key. Funny, Marnie seemed more the type to hide things under her mattress. Joanna went to the door and looked up the street, hoping to catch her smoking one last cigarette, but Marnie was nowhere to be seen.
***
When the phone rang later that afternoon, Joanna was helping a customer try on a daisy-sprigged 1940s dress. She was out of breath when she answered. “Hello, Tallulah’s Closet.”
“I need the coat back.” Marnie didn’t introduce herself, but there was no need. Her ragged voice gave her away.
Joanna’s heart sank. “I thought you said…”
“I need it. Can you bring it to me now?”
It was barely three in the afternoon. “Now? No. I have customers. The store doesn’t close for three more hours.”
“But I—”
Joanna gave an exasperated sigh. “Look, I won’t sell it. I promise. It’s not going anywhere.” She’d keep it on display, though. No harm in that. Maybe it would lure in a few more customers. “Aren’t you coming in tomorrow? I won’t have your money for the rest of things until then, anyway.”
“Yes, but I need the coat now.”
What had got into her? Joanna was used to a little orneriness, but this was ridiculous. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t. Tonight’s the twilight rummage sale at the Eagles Lodge, but I could stop by afterward, say about eight o’clock?” At the last rummage sale she’d scored a pile of Vera silk scarves in 1970s colors. They practically flew out of the store.
“Today. I said today.” Marnie coughed.
Joanna held the phone away from her ear until the coughing subsided. “I’m telling you it won’t work,” she said sharply. Too sharply. Her voice softened. “Oh Marnie, if I could, I’d bring it back right away. But it will be here first thing in the morning, and I’ll see you then. Right?”