Carol Clark - Fleeced

He certainly taped enough of the party scene last night, Regan thought. For the next hour she talked to the other guests. When she mentioned to Snoopy’s mom that one of the women with the heavy perfume hadn’t even been there last night, she just shrugged. “I get confused sometimes.”

Most of these women are heavy on the perfume-and makeup, Regan noted. After all, this party is a mating dance. People try to look their best.

“Are you having a good time?” Lydia asked as she pulled Regan aside.

“Lydia,” Regan said in a low voice, “I’d like to get the names and addresses of everyone here. I’d also like to know who was here last night who didn’t make it tonight. I’ll run a quick check on them. No one has to know.”

Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “It had better not leak, Regan. This is my livelihood.”

“It won’t,” Regan assured her. “Don’t forget. This is also for the sake of the Settlers’ Club. Now, I also need the names and addresses of the butlers.”

Lydia inhaled sharply. “Maldwin’s not going to like that.”

“If he and his students have nothing to hide, then it shouldn’t be a problem. This is standard procedure. I’m going down to see Thomas now.”

“I’ll put together the list and slip it under your door tonight,” Lydia promised.

“The sooner, the better,” Regan said. “I want to call everyone as soon as possible.”

At a candlelit table down in the stately dining room, Thomas and Janey were recuperating from their day of woe. They had each had a salad and a bowl of pasta and were now finishing the last of their bottle of wine. Before dinner, Thomas had made the dreaded calls to several of the members, assuring them that of course the party was still on and everything would be fine. He had also put a cold compress on Janey’s face and persuaded her to lie down on the couch. When they emerged from his apartment, she was wearing a pair of his sunglasses. Her eyes were red and swollen from the Mace.

When Regan walked in, she found them at the corner table, underneath the portrait of the founder of the club. He must be rolling in his grave, Regan thought.

“Did you sniff out anything up there?” Thomas asked as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. On the way back from Ben’s apartment they had discussed the perfume Janey had smelled as well as the reference to perfume in Ben’s journal.

Regan smiled wryly. “There were a lot of women wearing perfume. 1And everyone claims to have seen nothing.” She turned to the waiter who had approached her. “I’ll have a glass of red wine, please.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t go up there with you,” Janey said. “I just didn’t feel up to it, and I look a mess.”

“Don’t worry about it. Lydia wouldn’t have been too happy anyway. She doesn’t want it to seem as if we suspect any of her clients, and if you had walked into a singles party while you’re still recovering from a Mace attack, it might have seemed a little odd.”

“Or people might think I’m desperate.”

“That too,” Regan agreed.

“But I’m not desperate. I have Thomas.” Janey reached for his hand as he beamed.

And you’d better hang onto him, baby, Regan thought. Because something tells me you’re going to bring the Settlers’ Club into the papers tomorrow. And it ain’t going to be pretty. As the couple gazed into each other’s eyes, Regan took a sip of the wine the waiter had just put in front of her. I may as well continue, she thought. “I got the names of the perfumes all the women were wearing. I’m going to go out tomorrow and buy each one of them. Then we can see if you recognize any of them as the one you smelled today.” Regan paused. “Whoever ransacked Ben’s apartment might have no connection with the woman Nat was seeing. It could just be a coincidence.”

“The Fragrance Foundation would be thrilled to know how many people are spritzing themselves,” Thomas remarked.

“You might say the whole situation stinks,” Janey said before she drained her glass and started to giggle.

How many glasses of wine have you had? Regan wondered as she smiled at Janey. I guess I’d get a little giddy too after being locked in a cold, dark closet for a good part of the day, not knowing when I’d be rescued.

“Clara’s coming in tomorrow,” Thomas announced. “In an attempt to make amends for her disastrous phone call to the crime show.”

“I want to talk to her,” Regan said.

“Of course.”

After several minutes of small talk, Regan stood. “Time to call it a night. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“We have a lovely breakfast here in the dining room. Why don’t you come down?”

“Sounds good,” Regan said. As she walked out of the room, she looked at her watch. It was eleven-thirty. I’ve been here nearly fourteen hours, and I only have two days left to solve this crime.

Crimes, she thought. With each passing minute, she was becoming more and more certain that Nat had been murdered. That’s why she had to talk to Clara. She felt sure that Clara, unknowingly, had information that would be helpful.

When she got off the elevator and walked down to Nat’s door, she could still hear a small group of people inside Lydia’s apartment. The diehards, she thought.

Within fifteen minutes she was in bed in the guest room, the alarm set for seven o’clock. I want to get up early and take a good look through this apartment, she thought. There’s got to be something around here that gives me a clue. Regan turned out the light and put her head down on the pillow. Five minutes later, she was asleep.

Action!” Jacques Harlow cried to Daphne.

They were in his sparsely furnished, high-ceilinged, drafty loft on a deserted street in lower Manhattan. Jacques had signaled one of his assistants to turn on a fog machine as Daphne sat on the floor, surrounded by darkness, and began to rhapsodize on the benefits and sorrows of selling her farm. Nat and Wendy’s sheep stood at attention on either side of her.

“I look out over the moors,” Daphne almost whispered, “and my heart starts to sing…”

“Wait!” the cameraman shouted.

“Wait! What do you mean wait?” Jacques demanded. “The director is the boss! The director calls ‘action’ and the director calls ‘cut.’ How could you forget such a thing?”

“You’re going to waste a lot of film. I’m getting a bad reflection off the sheep’s eyes.”

“So turn the sheep sideways and pull their bangs down,” Jacques screamed impatiently.

Two weary production assistants hurried over. When they turned Dolly to face Daphne, one of her eyes fell out and rolled away into the darkness. As they frantically scrambled to feel around for it on the floor, Jacques screamed again. “Don’t worry about it! I don’t care about the sheep’s eyes. I only care what’s going on in my actor’s eyes. Now turn the other sheep and let’s go!”

Bah-Bah in place on one side, Dolly on the other, Daphne was ready to start over. The two sheep now looked as though they were dying to hear what she had to say.

“Action!” Jacques cried again.

For the next six minutes, Daphne emoted over her character’s sheep farm like nobody’s business. At the end, sobbing, she lowered her head to the ground as Scarlett O’Hara had done so famously in Gone with the Wind.

“Cut!” Jacques cried, his voice trembling. He wiped a tear from his eye and ran over to embrace Daphne. “I was so moved,” he whispered in her ear as the crew broke into applause. “You’re a magnificent actress. I want you to star in my next film.”