“She been through town before?” Chief Sherman asked.
“Once.”
“When is her trip scheduled?” Sheriff Bean asked.
“She’s arriving today. Problems with any of that?”
Judge Varney said, “It has to be done delicately with someone like Cross. He has a reputation. Friends in high places.”
“We’re aware of that delicacy, Erasmus,” Lizzie’s grandfather said. “That’s why I’ve called in a lace maker. She’ll sew everything together so their deaths look like tragic twists of fate.”
Part Four
A Coast of Gold
Chapter
62
Palm Beach, Florida
“Such a tragic way to die, Maggie,” Coco cooed. “But really, it’s acceptable now in our social strata, isn’t it? Or at least, it’s not the shame it once was.”
Dressed in a pair of Stéphanie Coudert white linen pants, a pale tan jersey, and ballet slippers, Jeffrey Mize sat wigless at the foot of the bed. He was lost in his alter ego, Coco, analyzing the fetal position of Maggie’s body, noting how the sheets were tucked perfectly under her chin, as if the poor dear had sought out a cozy spot in which to expire.
The spent bottle of Patrón on the night table helped the overdose tableau. So did the empty vials that had once held the deceased’s notoriously abused prescriptions for pain, anxiety, and sleep.
One cocktail was all it took, Coco thought with satisfaction as he got up off the bed. Maggie never knew what hit her. Not like Lisa Martin, who’d gone all Frankenstein’s bride, bug-eyed and shrieking when the radio hit the bathwater. And very unlike Ruth Abrams, who’d fought the noose with surprising strength.
Coco paused in front of Maggie’s mirror and admired the new clothes, the makeup, indeed the whole new look, before turning to the red box. He opened it, lifted out the wig. Copper-blond and shoulder-length, the hair fell easily about his shoulders.
A few adjustments and there was the effect he was going for: Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair, the casual look, not the one in the chess scenes with Steve McQueen where Faye was sheer elegance and glamour.
At least, that’s how Mother had always described this wig. Casual yet intriguing, sporty and strong. A woman who was a match for McQueen.
Coco laughed because he’d seen the movie and Mother was dead-on. Putting on tortoiseshell sunglasses to complete the Dunaway effect, he felt adventurous and naughty and very sexy when he pouted in the mirror. Coco left the mirror at last, took the canvas bag, and sauntered out of the bedroom and through the library. He paused where a portrait hung.
Maggie had been painted sitting barefoot on a sand dune at sunset. She wore jeans and a collared pink blouse, and she looked out to sea in three-quarter profile with windswept hair and an expression that suggested an awareness of her fading beauty. That’s how you’ll always be, he thought. Sitting on a coast of gold and thinking about loss.
Coco turned, leaving Maggie behind and yet forever with him in the memory of that painting. Beyond the kitchen, he checked the security system in a little room off the garage and was pleased to see it still down.
What had Maggie said? Something about a fifteen-minute reset?
Much more than I need, Coco thought, and flipped a switch that rebooted the system. Moving quicker, he went out into the garage and opened the door behind his beloved Aston Martin.
Coco got in, tied a blue scarf loosely over the wig, just as Faye had done in the famous dune-buggy scene in The Thomas Crown Affair with McQueen driving. He threw the Aston in gear and backed out into the first light of day.
The gate swung open. Coco drove out onto South Ocean Boulevard and headed north with the Aston’s top down. Salt spiced the air. The wind caused the scarf to flicker in his peripheral vision. The gathering day. The warming light.
It was like being in a movie, with Coco as the star, channeling Faye Dunaway as he drove past mansion after mansion bathed in the rising sun. He thought dreamily, You’ll all be mine someday. Mother always said so. You just have to dream it, Coco, and the whole world can be yours.
In town, he stopped for breakfast and played the Coco role to the hilt, feeding on the attention, enjoying how it made him and his audience glow. True glamour was always like that, Mother said. Beauty was a shared experience.
Getting back into the Aston Martin, Coco was confused for a moment, unsure where to go next. Then, like a homing pigeon, he relied on instincts to guide him. He drove for a while, parked the car, then walked to the door of Mize Fine Arts.
He’d spent a full night deep in the trance that was Coco, and it was only in front of the gallery that Mize realized who and where he was. Feeling suddenly weak, he fumbled with the lock before finally getting the shop door open.
Inside, he turned the dead bolt and shut down the alarm. He started through the gallery toward his office but felt so dizzy he had to stop and sit down on a stack of fine Oriental rugs in one of the alcoves. When was the last time he’d slept? A day? A day and a half? Had Coco taken all that time away?