Murder Most Fancy, page 12
‘I could take care of it for you,’ Esmerelda offered.
‘Are you prepared to work for free?’ Patricia asked from inside the wardrobe.
‘I’m prepared to work for waffles,’ Esmerelda countered.
‘Deal,’ Patricia said happily, and popped out of the wardrobe to give Esmerelda a hearty handshake.
What was it about this bedroom that made it so conducive to deal-making lately?
‘He’s such a pain in the ass I would’ve paid you to get rid of him,’ Patricia said, heading back into the wardrobe.
‘He’s such a douche, I would’ve done it for free,’ Esmerelda responded, taking one of my waffles.
Get rid of him? Take care of it? Those phrases gave me pause. After all, Esmerelda was still on parole. Perhaps if I spoke with him instead, he might revert to the relationship we’d had since our teen break-up: none.
Why was Dylan the first person Bettina had threatened to send the video to? It had been years since high school. Perhaps it was because the last I saw either of them for more than sixty seconds was in high school. Perhaps it was just low-hanging fruit. Perhaps she felt my Heiress on Fire scandal combined with a falling-over-a-dead-body scandal added on to my historical being-cheated-on scandal would be the most humiliating possible combination? I bet Bettina didn’t even have Dylan’s number. It was all just a fake-out and I fell for it.
Given Bettina’s heroic claims of having found the man in the lilies herself, it was unlikely she would now release a video of me stumbling over him. It would make her look like a liar. I would have liked to check her phone to be sure, but after last night I was no longer actively concerned.
I shuffled the teapot and the platter of waffles around the tray as I thought. There was a cream envelope made of thick cardstock wedged under the platter. I pulled it out. It was addressed to me. Sort of. It was typed by an actual typewriter and addressed to Indigo Jones-Bombberg.
Patricia emerged from the closet with an armful of garments needing to be dry cleaned. I waved the envelope. ‘Is this for me?’
‘Uh-huh,’ she said, heading for the door. ‘Came this morning.’
‘Old-school,’ Esmerelda said, eyeing the stamped envelope while forking bananas onto a pink flowered Royal Doulton side plate.
Patricia returned and unloaded the remaining contents of the tray: milk, cream, two napkins and one unused knife onto a Versace Le Jardin placemat on the shiny sandalwood table. ‘I’ll be back for the dishes in a bit.’ And she was gone.
‘Do you think Bettina will show anyone that video?’ I asked Esmerelda, turning the envelope over.
‘And out herself as a bullsh—liar? Nup. Nuh-uh.’ She shook her head and rested on the windowsill to drink her tea. This time from the inside leaning out. ‘It’s done.’
‘Do you think she ever had it?’ I mused, examining the back of the envelope. No return address.
She shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
That was a productive conversation.
‘Probably not,’ I said to myself. I used the clean breakfast knife to slit the envelope open. There was a stiff white card inside, also hand-typed. It read:
The dead body you found had:
• manicure
• pedicure
• aftershave
• hair lotion
• bleached hair shaft
Esmerelda was reading over my shoulder. ‘Dude,’ she scoffed. ‘Like that’s hardly news.’
‘That’s what you’re taking from this?’ I asked, flapping the sheet of card at her. ‘You don’t think it’s odd I just received a random typed note containing confidential police-type information about the man in the lilies?’
She shrugged. ‘Oh yeah, that’s totally weird. But maybe … maybe we got a street rep now. For like, solving crimes.’
Her gleeful face filled me with terror. It passed quickly. I seriously doubted anyone, street or otherwise, thought Esmerelda and I were a crime-fighting duo.
‘But getting old-school mail is super weird.’
That was way too many weirds for a Tuesday morning.
‘Who else would have this information?’ I wondered. ‘And why are they sending it to me?’
I mentally willed Esmerelda not to say anything about crime-fighting duos. Surprisingly, I won.
Instead, she shrugged again. ‘There’re loads of different people at crime scenes. Any one of ’em could’ve overheard. And, I mean, like, you worked out about his funky hair oil and nails at the scene. Plus, stuff gets ’round.’ She paused. ‘Not that I know about crime scenes.’
I was not going to touch that one.
‘What about this?’ I pointed to the line that read: pedicure.
‘What?’ she shot back. ‘You said the doctor lady said he had clean feet.’
What Bailly had actually said was that his feet had ‘no chronic wounds’ and ‘peripheral debris only’. After several Google searches, Esmerelda and I discovered this probably meant his feet had no old cuts or scrapes and were relatively clean. That the dirt, pebbles and grass I saw were, most likely, newly acquired light-wearing accessories rather than long-term wardrobe staples. Once I had given it some thought, I understood why Dr Bailly had commented. A homeless person with no shoes is likely to get all sorts of cuts and scrapes on their feet, possibly on a daily basis. Their feet are also likely to have some seriously ingrained long-term grime and filth, rather than just a smattering of freshly cut lawn, and store-bought pebbles and soil that were probably straight from a bag infused with garden nutrients. And maybe she was smelling him for the same reason. Maybe he didn’t smell homeless.
The point was, who else would know about the pedicure? I tried again. ‘What about this then?’ I pointed to the second last line that read: bleached hair shaft.
‘Yeah, that’s totally weird. Who says “shaft”?’
I inhaled and exhaled to gather patience. ‘But we didn’t know anything about his hair being bleached until last night,’ I pointed out. ‘When Mayson the barber told us.’
His hair appeared snow white to me at the scene. Not that I was checking for re-growth. I was sure Bailly would have said something if she’d noticed he’d had bleached hair.
‘It’s fully freaky,’ Esmerelda conceded, peering suspiciously around the room. ‘Do you think we’re being followed?’
‘Followed? You mean someone is watching us?’
She nodded.
I thought about it. It would have been virtually impossible to follow us into the hotel garage, sneak in behind us, trail us to the dining room, wait for us to come out, split into two, one person following Esmerelda and one following me, and then somehow eavesdrop on our conversation with Mayson the barber.
‘No,’ I concluded. ‘More likely we were bugged.’
Wait, where did that idea come from? Had we been bugged?
‘Seriously?’ Esmerelda said, patting herself down.
I surveyed the room, got up and walked to the closet. I motioned for Esmerelda to follow me. She shook her head. ‘Nuh-uh.’
I jerked my head towards the open closet door. She began assessing the dimensions of the windowsill. Was she going to jump? I gave her a look I hoped said Don’t do it! Then I heard myself say, ‘Don’t do it!’
Oh yes, I would make a master spy.
She huffed, shot off a hasty text message and slouched across the room.
‘Dude,’ she said, joining me in the wardrobe. ‘Like if I was gonna bug someone, I’d put it in their handbag.’
We looked across the wardrobe in unison at the row of handbags on our left, including the floral green Dior saddle bag with a cute pink tassel I’d had with me last night.
‘I left my handbag in the car when I went inside the hotel. The second time,’ I said.
‘Or their shoes,’ she said, pointing right, to the black and pink Jimmy Choo stilettos. They sat among a rack of over two dozen shoes. They could all be bugged for all I knew. But why? Why would anyone bug us? We had only just begun looking into Max slash the man in the lilies. And if someone had bugged or followed us, why would they then repeat that information back to us? On an antique typewriter and by post, no less. They wouldn’t.
Regardless, for the next half hour I checked every handbag, and Esmerelda every shoe, for a listening device. We found nothing. Another thought occurred to me. I had only just finished telling Esmerelda about Shale the manicurist when we were interrupted by Esmerelda smashing Patricia’s car into a lamppost last night. We didn’t get a chance to discuss what she had found in the laundry.
‘What did you find out in the hotel laundry?’ I asked, picking up a pair of silver Stuart Weitzman stilettos and double-checking them for listening devices.
She gave me a blank stare. ‘I was supposed to find out something?’
‘Yes!’ I squeaked. ‘You were supposed to search through Max’s dry-cleaning, his clothes. For clues.’
‘Huh,’ she said, eyeing my handbag rack. ‘I totally didn’t get that.’
God help me, I was going to kill her. Or myself. Or both of us. Or Grandmother. Someone. I thoroughly disliked being in this situation. There had to be a way out.
‘What if I hired Earl Stevenson or Nigel Barker to get you out of your contract with Heinsmann?’ I asked, taking a pink Balenciaga Hello Kitty bag out of her hands and placing it back on the shelf.
Earl was the long-time Hasluck-Royce family lawyer. Pure Sydney Grammar, Savile Row. Nigel ‘Barking’ Barker was an east coast lawyer famed for getting his celebrity clients out of crimes they quite obviously committed, often on flimsy or absurd excuses.
‘You ever gonna use that?’ she asked, pointing to the Hello Kitty bag.
‘No. But it could become a collectible,’ I said, adjusting the red bow. ‘What about Earl?’
‘Heinsmann would eat Mr Bowtie for breakfast.’
‘Barker then.’
‘Your mum and Eddy already got onto him. He says Heinsmann’s not into it. Won’t let me outta the contract. Last I heard Barking was like trying to swap me out for one of his clients. Alice someone.’
‘Alice Gold?’
‘Yeah, that’s the chick.’ More handbag touching. Alice Gold was the hottest actress in the country. She had Oscar and Golden Globe buzz. I wondered what she’d done to attract Barker’s services. Whatever it was, Barker had kept it quiet. He was good.
‘Heinsmann won’t budge?’ I asked, following Esmerelda as she walked along the row of handbags, removing her hands as she casually touched pristine pieces I had not even used yet.
‘Nope. Told you. Psycho. But I reckon old Lizzy’s totally got the goods,’ she said, clipping and unclipping the brass hook and clip on a straw Valentino tote.
It was difficult to argue with her. Dame Elizabeth had many friends in many high fashion places. Besides, even if I could fix Esmerelda’s problem with Heinsmann, I still had the small matter of my blackmailing grandmother. I could not currently think of a workaround for that.
I brushed her hand from a Chanel clutch. It was classic Chanel. She would have hated it. ‘What is with all the handbag touching?’
She withdrew her hand immediately. ‘Nothing. I was just like double checkin’ for bugs.’
Lie.
‘No, you weren’t,’ I said, narrowing my eyes and straightening the clutch. ‘You miss the old days?’
In a previous life Esmerelda had worked in ‘pre-retail fashion’. That is, she sold and distributed fake, high-quality designer shoes, handbags, clothes and God knows what else, for a professional counterfeiting outfit. They were manufactured at a sweatshop in the western Sydney suburb of Bankstown. Esmerelda had dubbed it the Bankstown Boutique. No, you will not find it in a Google search. I tried.
Esmerelda had probably had her hands on just as much Dior, Chanel, Valentino, Gucci, Prada, Mu Mui, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton et al as me. The difference being that none of mine were stolen or imitation. That I knew of.
‘Yeah, I was, and nup, I don’t,’ Esmerelda said in another obvious lie. It was incredible to me that sometimes I could tell immediately when she was lying and other times I could not have been sure if my life depended on it.
‘It’s okay. We all like beautiful things. I love playing with them,’ I said, being more vulnerable than I felt comfortable. It was not often Esmerelda and I had common ground. Not in shopping anyway.
There was a small tap on the outside of the wardrobe door.
‘Geez,’ said a familiar voice, ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt. I mean, if you’re in the middle of something, I can wait outside.’
How on earth did Searing get into my bedroom? How did he get onto the estate? How did he get through Patricia? Wait, I knew that part. Patricia was all kinds of fond of Searing. Truth be told, once you worked out the Patricia part, the rest fell into place.
‘Handbags!’ I shouted at him in an unnecessarily loud and high voice through the wardrobe doors. ‘We were talking about handbags.’
‘Like, no we weren’t,’ Esmerelda casually retorted, putting a square, clip-close, ivory base with solid gold filigree overlay Dolce & Gabbana purse back on the shelf.
I held my palms out in exasperation and stared at her in disbelief. ‘What do you think he is implying we’re doing in here?’ I hissed. It took her a few moments and then understanding settled in.
‘Dude, I’d totally rather be a lesbian than a sybarite,’ she retorted. ‘Gay chicks have the best sneakers.’
What on earth is a sybarite?
‘I do not know what that is,’ I whispered, ‘but if I’m insulted when I look it up, I will expect an apology.’
‘You’re gonna be disappointed,’ she said over her shoulder as she walked to the doors.
Do. Not. Struggle. By the time I talked myself out of being distracted by Esmerelda, I had already been distracted by Esmerelda and the closet doors were open.
I was soon out of the closet and face to chest with Searing. Was he always this tall? Was he always this shape? So movie-set godlike? Who was in charge of hiring at the police academy anyway, William Morris? Kenneth Branagh?
He latched onto me with those golden eyes and I immediately felt my mouth water. This was ridiculous.
‘How did you get in here?’ I demanded.
‘Well,’ he started, ‘I spoke to Patricia and she—’
I held my hands up to silence him. ‘No need. I can imagine how it went from there.’
I attempted to back him out of the room by walking towards him as I spoke; however, he took only a tiny quarter step for every one of my full steps, the result being I ended up even closer to him. He was once again in a perfectly fitting suit which, for a man of his height, had to be custom.
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded.
‘The caped crusader here,’ he said, gesturing to Esmerelda, who had wasted no time in eating the remainder of my sliced bananas, ‘sent an SOS on the bat phone.’
‘Must you two always speak in riddles?’ I asked, looking up at him in exasperation.
‘Like, I texted him we’re being bugged. Or followed. Or like bugged and followed,’ she said between bites.
‘Since when are you two so tight?’ Esmerelda had no love for the police. Or parking inspectors. Or magistrates. There was a list.
Esmerelda pointed a banana-and-strawberry-laden gold fork past me to Searing. ‘Dude’s been busted down to cold cases. He’s basically a mini cop again. Who’s he gonna tell?’
I surveyed Searing for confirmation.
‘Cold cases are important work,’ he said. ‘Everyone deserves justice. Even if it takes a while.’
Esmerelda chuckled. ‘That line’s straight outta the dead job manual.’
She was doing it again. Derailing me. Redirecting my brain. It was hard enough to concentrate around Searing. I’d come back to the awkward career move from AFP liaison to cold case detective, after the being followed or bugged conversation.
I leaned into Esmerelda, who was seated in my tufted shell chair, and said quietly, ‘You told him Dame Elizabeth asked us to track down the identity of the man in the lilies? Who is probably her super-perfect new boyfriend Max?’
‘No,’ she said, eating a banana slice. ‘But like he’s right there, so he probably knows now.’
I glanced at Searing. He was looking at the slightly borrowed Vermeer hanging on the wall near my bed.
‘Were you listening?’ I demanded.
‘No,’ he fibbed. ‘Is that a real Vermeer?’
‘No,’ I fibbed back.
‘I really like the honesty we have in our relationship,’ he smiled. ‘Tell me why you think you’re being followed. Or bugged.’
CHAPTER 10
SECRETS, FAITH AND DENTURES
I reluctantly filled in the blanks, leaving out the lack of permission around Grandmother’s oil paintings, hiding under a table at the Holly Park and faltering all over the body. Instead, I just said I had noticed a few things about the man in the lilies that day, Dame Elizabeth didn’t want him left in the deep freeze, Grandmother had casually noted Max was possibly missing and we’d had an impromptu chat to some of the Holly Park Hotel Sydney staff about him.
‘Dead dude is totally boyfriend Max dude,’ Esmerelda said, ever helpful in delicate conversations.
‘We received this in the post this morning,’ I said, handing him the typed card and envelope.
He took the envelope and peered inside. There was nothing. I had already done that. He examined the stamp and the post mark on the envelope. ‘SWPF.’
‘Dude, English.’
‘Oh, SWPF, the Sydney West Postage Facility. It was processed in the city,’ he said. ‘That narrows it down to a few million people. Thousands of post boxes. Typed? Huh,’ he remarked, examining the card.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s a little dated.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s old-school,’ he said, echoing Esmerelda’s earlier comment. ‘Or trying to appear old-school.’
I exchanged glances with Esmerelda. That was a good point. Why didn’t we think of that? A seventeen-year-old pretending to be a boomer could have written it with an ancient typewriter bought at a thrift shop for five dollars on purpose, to throw us off.
