Dead is the New Black Read online

  “You don’t think he did it?” Stu asked.

  “No!”

  “Whatever, Laura. Do you want me to go with you tomorrow to clear your desk?”

  “Stu! We got the last runway slot. It’s the best space, and Jeremy practically had to stab Zac Posen in the back to get it.”

  “You sure he didn’t?”

  Jeremy was ambitious to a fault, and she’d just admitted as much. “You’re being so mainstream,” she said, citing their favorite joke. Whenever one of them thought in simple terms, or acted “unhip”—Laura was usually the guilty party—the stock accusation was “mainstream.” But this time, she meant it. She walked out of the hallway. She didn’t care about the band, Michael, or Ruby. They weren’t going to help her forget. She wanted to go home.

  It was a three-block walk that Stu insisted on making with her. The show didn’t start for half an hour, and his part of the lighting was done.

  “We all know how you feel about your boss,” Stu said.

  She had a sudden pain in her chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You think he can’t do anything wrong, and maybe you’re right. Maybe when it comes to the business you’re in, he makes really good decisions, every time. But you’re blinded by it.”

  “Thanks for setting me straight,” she said, as they turned the corner.

  “You can be pissed at me if you want.”

  “I’m not pissed at you.”

  He looked at her slyly. “You’re honesty-challenged right now.”

  “Well, I had it up to my eyeballs today with this, and no one will let it drop.”

  Stu slowed in front of her building. There was a man in a jacket leaning against the mailboxes. “Who’s that guy in your lobby?”

  “Detective Cangemi.”

  Stu took out his cell phone. “Bart?” he shouted. “I’ll be late. Can you manage it? I programmed everything. Okay. See you later.” He snapped the phone closed.

  “You can go back,” Laura said. “He’s a cop, after all. I think I’m safe.”

  “If you tell me to go away, I’ll go away.”

  “Chivalry noted.” But even though she’d just called him mainstream, he stayed. She knew he would. She wanted a second set of ears on whatever conversation she was about to have, and she could think of no better witness than Stu.

  CHAPTER 5.

  Laura let Cangemi and Stu into her apartment, which was a pigsty. She decided not to care. It was impossible to clean right before Fashion Week, and she had neither the heart nor the cash to hire someone to do it. Cangemi refused a beer but asked for water. Stu did the opposite. She sat next to Stu on the couch, while Cangemi leaned forward on what Laura called the “Big Chair.” Laura thought he’d get to whatever was bothering him, but it seemed he wanted to make small talk.

  “When I saw you lived in my neighborhood, I figured I could come by tonight instead of tomorrow. Hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Cangemi glanced between her and Stu. She wanted him to believe he was interrupting an epic make-out session, but she didn’t want Stu to think one was on tap for later, either.

  “Okay, what can I do for you?” Laura asked.

  “Your production manager sent me to you,” Cangemi said. Yoni didn’t like the police. She had some sort of history she wouldn’t discuss. “She said you’d be able to explain what a…” He looked in his notebook. “What a top sample is.”

  “Tee Oh Pee,” she corrected. “It stands for ‘top of production.’ It’s the first pressed and tagged sample off the sewing line.”

  “Take me through it.”

  “It’s really boring.”

  “That’s okay. I’m used to being bored.”

  She glanced at Stu, who didn’t seem to regret his decision to come up. “Okay. Well, you go through the whole process, then you send a TOP for approval.”

  “What’s the process?”

  “Oh, Jesus, you’re kidding, right?” From his expression, he wasn’t kidding. There had to be a way to shorten her description of the yearlong procedure to get a garment from idea to store. “Well, say it’s a jacket. We get the pattern right. The sewing. The pressing. Even the way the button is sewn on can be its own thing. So we get it just so and make one perfect jacket from the bulk fabric in the sample room.”

  “That’s the place on 38th?”

  “Yes, the sewing floor’s behind the big doors in the hallway. Okay, so we take that perfect sample, with a list of instructions that we write on a card called the cut sheet.”

  “You write that?”

  “Sometimes, if I’m the patternmaker. We have another guy for soft wovens.”

  “And that is?”

  “Blouses, drapey things. You with me?”

  “I’m with you.”

  “Stu? You want another beer?”

  “It’s not that boring.”

  “Right. So, that perfect sample and the cut sheet goes to the factory, which in this case is Jeremy’s parents’ old sewing floor on 40th and Eleventh. But in the case of just about everyone else, it’s sent to China. I don’t know how any of that import stuff works.” Seeing that Cangemi wasn’t interested in Chinese production, Laura continued, “The floor manager sets up the sewing line based on his cut sheet, the sample, and his staff. So, like, if the jacket has a lining, you set up people to cut the lining, people to sew the lining, people to sew the shell, and pressers for interfacing. You set up a place to put the pieces. Then, you have to either reconfigure the sewers so that the lining and the shell go to the back of the line where they’re sewn together, or continue to the end. This is huge. You have to know how long things take. You have to know all the steps, and you have to know which of your people can do what, like setting in a sleeve is a lot different than hemming a lining. I am so losing you right now.”

  “No, no. I was just thinking.”

  Fine. If he wanted to be in a coma, that was his business. “Then the floor manager makes one garment on the line and sends it back to Yoni for approval. This is how you find out if you missed any steps, or if the cut sheet was complete. Stu totes these around a lot, right?”

  “Yep. I ride for Blazing Saddle Messenger.”

  “That’s called a Pre-Production sample. Once that’s approved, they start the sewing line and, once they start bagging, they send us a TOP.”

  Cangemi turned to Stu. “Did you deliver a TOP from the factory on 40th to St. James’s office yesterday?”

  “The factory sometimes uses a West Side service,” Stu replied, with no little disdain. “Ketchum Couriers. Big corporate assholes.”

  Cangemi wrote that down and turned back to Laura. “And if something is going to be wrong with the shipment, it’ll show up on the TOP?”

  Laura nodded. “Unless the floor manager’s full of it and just puts his best person on a whole garment, which is not going to happen, because Jeremy owns the factory.”

  “What if a TOP didn’t make it to the office? What then?”

  “Stop using Ketchum,” Stu tossed out. Laura punched him in the leg. She was glad he was there.

  “Well,” she said, “since the line’s already set up, he’s going to start anyway and catch mistakes as he goes. So if the TOP doesn’t show up, Yoni would have to go to 40th and check the line.”

  “Not St. James?”

  “He avoids the factory like a skin disease.”

  Cangemi closed his notebook. “I’m sorry to keep you here so late.”

  “It’s fine,” Laura said, though she was quite tired. “Will Jeremy be back tomorrow? We really need him.”

  “No,” Cangemi answered, as he headed out the door. “Not tomorrow, for sure.”

  Laura was disappointed, but the wheels of justice moved slowly, or so she’d heard. She didn’t have to kick Stu out. He left after a pit stop, and Laura was finally alone in her apartment.

  Above her, she heard Ruby and Michael get home, followe
d by laughter, then quiet, then the bed squeaking. She went into the living room with her blanket and pillow and sprawled on the couch. She couldn’t hear Ruby and Super Douche from there.

  She hadn’t thought one second about Gracie Pomerantz, real-live human being. She remembered her first sight of the body, which was a Via Spiga pump half off its bloodless foot, then the face—the swollen tongue, the black-and-blue on her neck, and the bird nest of hair. She’d had mascara and lipstick smudged across her face like the Joker. And her eyes. Laura remembered how they bulged, but couldn’t remember the color. Brown? Blue? Green? One of those indiscriminate mood-ring colors? How could she forget that? How many murdered bodies did she see? How could her mind have been so crowded that she forgot the color of Gracie’s eyes?

  She was sad. Not for any reason she could pin down, but just sad in a general way that was like a thick cloud around her head. She tried to forget about it and think about Jeremy under the covers with her, or of the vacation she needed to plan. But the sadness was thick and pervasive, and it won the battle for her thoughts.

  She remembered the time Gracie had lost six pounds and demanded Laura alter the Noelle Gown, a one-of-a-kind couture masterpiece Jeremy had built for her; she wanted it by the weekend. It had been a busy week, and Laura had stayed up three nights in a row to do the alterations. And Gracie wore a de la Renta, instead. Gracie had never thanked her, either, but Jeremy did, and in such a way that she could feel the sincerity coming from deep within his gut. Whatever it was that made Jeremy care about her enough to gift her with gratitude like that also somehow made him seem a worthwhile person.

  Laura went to sleep knowing that if there was anything she could do to help Jeremy, or anything she could do to find out who killed Gracie, she would.

  CHAPTER 6.

  By morning, Gracie Pomerantz’s death by strangulation with a zebra-printed header was all over the news. Roberto Moses carefully explained what a header was for, besides strangling someone. Joanne Mulroney acted perky. Chuck Scantfield had earnest feelings, though it was difficult to discern exactly what those feelings were. They played at shock, then they played at eulogizing a woman they didn’t have the displeasure of knowing. The police commissioner, using a hundred words or less, said they were working on it. Gracie’s husband, Sheldon Pomerantz, a hotshot lawyer with his name on the door and a reputation for raking in money, managed to fast track Gracie through the autopsy process so street closures could be arranged for what promised to be the funeral of the century. Laura had never met him but, from his clipped tone with the newscaster as he got into his red Mercedes convertible, she imagined he was one of those highly effective types everyone hated.

  Jeremy’s lawyer came on, with talk of trials and grand juries that made Laura want to change the channel. But she didn’t. She watched, and was stunned when she heard his name. Tinto Benito, the guy who called to let them know when Jeremy took an unexpected vacation, was actually Jeremy’s lawyer. How did a lawyer double as a personal assistant?

  He was huge, with a full head of hair and a beard to match. He bellowed the facts of his client’s innocence, waving a hand to ward off the accusations, switching his briefcase and waving with his other hand, like both right and left wanted a piece of the action.

  She turned off the TV and considered a shower, but found herself distracted by her computer. She checked the online newspapers and found more information, none of which helped. Jeremy insisted he was at the factory the night before, correcting a shipment, but no one saw him. Gracie’s husband was stunned to get home from an all-night poker game and find his wife gone. He intended to get justice via hell or high water, whichever came first.

  She shut off the computer. It was plain depressing.

  Was it worth going into work early if Jeremy wasn’t going to be there? If no artisanal coffee or fifteen minutes of attention beckoned? If she’d just be alone? Working? There was a lot on her table after the drama yesterday but, without him in the office with his mussed hair and his saltwater smell, her enthusiasm for the job dried up.

  She called Benito’s office. It was six in the morning, and she expected to leave a message, but someone picked up without saying hello.

  “I’m not giving interviews.” She recognized Benito’s voice. He must have come in before the receptionist.

  She knew she had less than a second. “I work for Jeremy St. James, and I need to see him. It’s about his business.”

  “What’s your name, young lady?”

  “Laura Carnegie.” Habituated to the inevitable follow-up question, she added, “No relation.”

  “Well, Ms. Carnegie-no-relation, can you tell me what you do for him, what the issue is, and your phone number?”

  She was caught unprepared. She started with the phone number and her position, then started making stuff up. “We have this interfacing on that huge order, and they replaced the UFS-51 with UFN-72. I want to show him the test press.”

  “If you were a second worth your salt, you’d know you can’t swap a stretch with a non-woven,” he bellowed. Well, she had to scrap that. Who knew the fat lawyer was a closet garmento, as well as a personal assistant?

  “Look, we don’t know if he’s coming back, and we have a lot to do for next Friday. I have no idea if we should cancel the show, and I don’t know if anyone else is asking.”

  “I don’t think he cares right now.”

  “Then you don’t know Jeremy St. James.”

  He paused. She heard his breath on the phone and knew it reeked of black coffee. “You know how to get to Rikers?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Well figure it out, and let me tell you before you do, it may be a wasted trip.”

  The thought of Jeremy in the Bronx was surreal enough. The thought of him in Rikers was chilling. If Central Park was the city’s backyard, Rikers was the haunted house down the block that your mother told you to stay away from.

  She took the L to the F to Queensbridge, where she got on a bus that felt like it went to the end of the earth. Signs in bold sans serif warned against picking up passengers, carrying firearms and explosives. She walked inside, toward the checkpoint, wondering if they called sharp objects shivs or shanks. She saw Tinto Benito at the counter. He pointed to her, and Laura was sure she’d be on the bus home in less than ten minutes.

  She took a deep breath and approached the desk with her head high and her heart pounding.

  “This is Laura Carnegie,” Benito said to the guard, who was seven feet tall at the outside and maybe two hundred pounds and change. Benito winked at her. She decided to shut up and let the lawyer talk. “A relation. I just put her on the list for eight o’clock.”

  “How are you related to the incarcerated?”

  Tinto spoke before she could, “Cousin.”

  Laura felt the heavy pause and clamped her mouth shut so there would be no jabbering on her part. No “my mother’s brother” this or “second twice removed” that. The next words would come from the guard if she had to stand silent like an Indian chief.

  “No cell phones,” the guard stated. “No sharp objects. No credit cards. No firearms or incendiary devices. No bags. No perishables. Lockers are in the waiting room. Please use them.”

  “Okay.” She showed him her driver’s license, gave her fingerprint, signed a list of rules she’d never remember, then went to the waiting room. She expected to see hardened criminals with their hands hanging out of their cells, banging tin cups against the bars, but the waiting room looked like a post office in a bad neighborhood. It was clean, but well-used by loud children and bored adults. Some were dressed as if for a special occasion. Some were dressed to do laundry. Nobody wanted to be there.

  Tinto slid into the seat next to her. “He said to get someone from the office, and I looked like a hero when I said you were on your way. I owe you one.”

  “I thought you were Jeremy’s assistant, with the phone calls about the vacations and all.”

  “Nope.” Tinto lea
ned back and poked at his cell phone. He apparently had no intention of clearing up his muddy job description.

  “What do they have him on?” She tried to peek over at his phone, but he put it down.

  “You trying to sound like you know what you’re talking about?”

  “On what evidence are they holding my boss? That better?”

  He smiled and shook his head a little. “Not much. I think they just need to look like they’re doing something.”

  “Detective Cangemi came to my house last night.”

  Tinto shut his phone. “What did he want?”

  “First, you tell me what they have Jeremy on.” She felt like she just crossed into an abyss. Of course, a lawyer would have a way around her stupid game.

  Instead, he answered, “They got fibers from the murder weapon on his hands, they got him on tape coming into the office the night before, and they got him fighting with the victim all day Saturday. They think the paper shredding was all about him trying to cut her out of the business.” He made a face as if that were the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. “And he has no alibi, which is the damnedest. So what did that little Flatbush prick want?” He had obviously met Cangemi a few times before.

  Laura was about to answer when a buzzer went off, jolting everyone in the room into a heightened state of awareness.

  It was eight o’clock.

  It began at their first meeting, arranged by Carmella after she mentored Laura at Parsons. Though Carmella had little of note to say about Laura’s designing, she saw her muslins and was duly impressed by her ability to translate three-dimensional ideas into flat shapes. The next week, she brought her a double grande no-foam latte with three hazelnut pumps in a venti cup, an exact twin to her own, and wooed her with tales of life as the daughter of a disowned Italian Countess in Milan. That Saturday, Laura had gone to Carmella’s pseudo loft for an it-took-all-day Bolognese served with the company of three of the most accomplished people whose names Laura would never remember. The spell began with Carmella’s story of the son of a Monaco gambler chasing her up the Duomo in Florence, culminating in a kiss at the top, and ending with her strolling topless on the beach in Sciacca with a construction worker who left her heartbroken. After that, she cut her hair into a pixie and wouldn’t let it grow out until she found love again. It was a heart-tugging tear-jerker over the zabaione.