Page 28 of A Matter of Pedigree (A Carole and Poopsie Mystery #1)

“This is such a relief, I can’t tell you,” said Carole, checking her Cartier watch. “Oh, God, I’ve got to get back. I’ve got that meeting with Celerie Lonsdale.” On her way to the door, she paused, remembering Polly. “Do you want to come?”

“I think I’ll stay here, catch up with Giovanna,” said Polly.

Polly almost asked who the hell was Giovanna, when she remembered that was Mom’s name.

“That’ll be nice,” said Mom, shooing Carole out the door. “Go on.”

Carole left in a flurry of hugs and kisses, getting back to the Esplanade just as Celerie Lonsdale was arriving in her little white van.

With her shoulder-length blond hair, Hermès scarf, cashmere jacket, and tweed pants, she might have stepped from the pages of Town and Country magazine.

She was very excited, she told Carole, as they went up to the apartment, to be working in the building, which she found quite impressive.

“The space!” she declared, waving her arm at the enormous lobby.

“That’s what’s so great about these old factories—they have so much room. And these tall ceilings!”

When they got to the apartment, Poopsie took an immediate dislike to Celerie, and Carole shut her in the master bath. Once the dog was safely confined, she gave Celerie a tour of the apartment, steeling herself for a critical review.

But Celerie seemed to approve or was too smart to disapprove until she was sure she had the job, at which time she could offer some tactful suggestions. So Carole was surprised when Celerie exclaimed, apparently genuinely impressed, “This is charming! Who designed it?”

“I did, with a little help from my daughter’s friend who’s studying design at RISD,” admitted Carole. “It was fun.”

“You did a great job,” declared Celerie. “Big spaces like this can be tricky. But you picked furniture that fits the space, and the colors are wonderful. You really have an eye.”

“Well, thanks,” said Carole, warming to the woman despite herself. Flattery was powerful stuff and hard to resist. “My big problem is the windows.”

“They’re sure big.” Celerie waved an arm at the huge expanse of glass that filled most of the exterior walls of the apartment. “The silver blinds are a good start.”

“They came with the place,” said Carole. “I don’t want to get rid of them; I just want to soften the look. Make it less industrial and more boho.”

Celerie was resting her chin in her hand, studying the situation. “What I wouldn’t give for windows like these,” she said. “Our apartment is so tiny, and the ceilings are quite low because we’re up in the attic.”

Carole saw an opportunity to steer the conversation in the direction she wanted to go, and she seized it. “But Prospect Place is wonderful, with all that amazing carved woodwork. We would have loved to live there.” She paused. “Maybe we’ll try again.”

“And leave this?” exclaimed Celerie, determined to get, and keep, the decorating job. “Frankly, I think this is much nicer. You’d be crazy to give it up.”

“I don’t know,” grumbled Carole. “Some of the people here aren’t quite as nice as you people over at Prospect Place. There’s a lot of kids, and they can be really noisy.”

“Well, that’s definitely not a problem at Prospect Place; it’s quiet as a tomb,” admitted Celerie. “Mark and I are the youngest, and we’re so exhausted from working all day and climbing all those stairs up to our tiny garret that we’re more interested in sleeping than partying.”

“Have you made friends with any of your neighbors? Like the Pooles?” asked Carole. “They seem terribly interesting.”

“I’m sure they are, but I don’t really know them. She asked me to help her with the kitchen redo, but she pretty much had it all figured out, just used me to get access to some European brands that aren’t generally available here.”

“What’s she like?” persisted Carole.

“Very French. Knows what she wants and gets it,” said Celerie, with a big sigh. “Very detail-oriented.”

“What about the professor?”

Celerie was sitting on the sofa, studying the windows.

“He wouldn’t let me touch a thing in that apartment except the kitchen, and believe me, it could use some freshening up.

” She shook her head. “I see him coming and going, sometimes, but all I get is a nod. He’s always forgetting something, so he comes and goes a lot.

Some mornings it takes him three or four tries before he’s out the door. ”

Carole smiled. “A real absent-minded professor. Somehow I wouldn’t have expected him to marry a woman like Angelique. She’s much younger, isn’t she?”

“Hard to tell; those French women keep their looks.” Celerie was jotting something on a pad of paper she’d pulled out of her bag. “They seem quite happy. I mean, I never hear them arguing or anything, and I would if they did. Those walls are not as thick as you’d expect.”

“I bet you’re glad Hosea’s gone,” ventured Carole. “He must have been a bit of a wet blanket.”

“I can’t say I miss him,” admitted Celerie. “But we certainly didn’t wish him any harm.”

“Neither did we,” Carole was quick to say. “Frank had nothing to do with …”

“Of course not.” Celerie’s affirmation of Frank’s innocence was a bit too quick and too vehement. “Do you have any color preferences?”

Carole wanted to get the conversation back to Prospect Place. “I couldn’t help admiring the curtains in Hosea Browne’s apartment, the night we were there,” she said.

Celerie raised an eyebrow. “That dark red?”

Carole knew she’d made a mistake. “No, the lining.”

“Kind of a pinky beige?”

“Yes!” agreed Carole, who didn’t have a clue.

“You certainly do have quite an eye for detail,” said Celerie.

“Not really. I couldn’t tell you another thing about the room, except that it was old-fashioned.”

“Like Hosea himself,” agreed Celerie. “A gentleman of the old school, if there ever was one. His brother is quite different.”

“Jonathan? Was that his name?” Carole asked, pretending ignorance.

“Yes. He’s back from Peru. He was involved in some sort of accident, he said. He’s got his leg in a cast, and he’s using a crutch. I hear him playing that Peruvian flute music all the time.”

“Poor man,” said Carole. She knew she ought to be guilt-stricken, but what was done was done, and she was actually pleased, not to mention relieved, that he was out of the hospital and apparently on the road to recovery. “What about the little old lady in the basement?” she asked.

“Millicent Shaw?”

“Yes. What’s she like?”

“Sweet. Agreeable. I don’t really know, except that I don’t like her curtains. They’re made from Indian bedspreads, I think, unlined, and they look horrible from the outside. They don’t go with the style of the house at all. Kind of sixties hippie chic, if you can believe it.”

“Did she and Hosea get along?” asked Carole, persisting in her effort to get some information out of Celerie and hoping she wouldn’t become suspicious.

“As well as any of us did,” said Celerie, with a shrug. Then she straightened up, as if receiving a sudden inspiration. “I think I have an answer to your problem.”

“You do?” Carole was all ears. Did Celerie have a suspect in mind?

“Festoons!”

Carole didn’t have a clue. “Festoons?”

“Absolutely. Lush and gorgeous, with plenty of passementerie …”

Carole was even further in the dark. What the hell was passementerie? She was pondering this question when the door opened and Polly let herself in.

“What sort of passementerie?” inquired Polly. “Fringe? Balls?”

Ah, thought Carole, mother to the rescue. It must mean fancy trim, the sort of stuff they put on cushions and curtains.

“All of it,” declared Celerie. “This is a big space, and we want to make an impact. I’ve seen some gorgeous, over-sized stuff from a place in Florence. They make it to order, and we’ll go for size, because it will be quite high up, and we want to be able to appreciate its bespoke beauty.”

While she was talking, Polly had heard Poopsie yip and went to find her.

Returning with the dog in her arms, she sat down on the couch.

Poopsie seemed perfectly content to remain in her lap, resting her chin on her paws and occasionally giving her a devoted glance.

“I think Carole was thinking of some simple linen sheers,” said Polly, stroking Poopsie’s chin.

“I don’t think sheers will have quite the impact we need,” said Celerie, making a last-ditch effort to save a sizable commission. “We want to give an impression of luxe, of richness, no?”

“Sometimes less is more,” said Polly, as the dog flipped onto her back for belly rubs.

Sheers? Festoons? Carole was confused. “I don’t really …”

“Of course not,” agreed Celerie. “It’s a big decision. Tell you what, I’ll work up some sketches and get back to you; how about that? Then you can see how both styles will look.”

“Sure,” said Carole, relieved to be off the hook.

“Of course, I will need a deposit before I can begin,” said Celerie, not quite meeting Carole’s eyes. “A thousand is customary, to get started.”

Carole hadn’t expected this. “Just for a sketch?”

“I draw them myself; I don’t use a computer,” Celerie was quick to explain. “They’re really lovely little water colors that you can frame, if you want. And I’ll provide estimates, too. It’s quite time-consuming, but any portion of the deposit that isn’t used gets credited to your account.”

“Of course,” sighed Carole, going to fetch her checkbook.

When she returned with the check, Celerie practically snatched it out of her hand. “I’ll be in touch,” she promised, grabbing her Coach bag and making a quick departure.

When Celerie had gone, Polly released Poopsie, who ran across the floor to the door, sniffing the floor and following the designer’s trail. At the door, she stopped and pressed her nose against the crack, determined to sniff up every last trace of Celerie’s scent.

“I’ve never seen her do that,” observed Carole.

“She smells her fear,” said Polly. “That woman is desperately afraid.”

“Of what? Of Frank?”

“No. Not at all. I think she has money problems. Why else would she suggest fancy curtains with fringes and flounces? It’s all wrong for this place; elaborate Italian passementerie would look ridiculous with exposed brick walls, Frank’s leather chair, that sleek entertainment center.

No, there’s only one reason she would suggest it, and that’s because it’s obscenely expensive and she can tack on a nice big markup for herself.

That’s why. She wants to get as much money out of you as she can.

I bet she’s down in the lobby, sending an image of that check to her bank.

The money will be in her account before she leaves the building.

” She glanced at Carole’s Vuitton bag that was sitting on the console table.

“And she had a Coach bag. You can pick them up at Macy’s. Or Nordstrom’s Rack.”

“I think you’re right,” said Carole, who had just written a check for a thousand dollars and didn’t have anything to show for it, which wasn’t the way she usually did things. She reached for the phone and called Connie.

“Hi, sweetie, I need you to do something for me.”

“Something legal?” said Connie, cautiously.

Carole pretended she didn’t hear that. “Find out everything you can about Celerie and Mark Lonsdale; they live over there in Prospect Place.”

“Um, I don’t think I can do that.”

“Why not? Hosea Browne retained your firm, right? You’ve got all the applications, the deeds, all that stuff for Prospect Place.”

“Yeah, Ma, but they don’t leave that stuff lying around. I have limited access. I’m the low girl on the totem pole. First-year associates are lower even than the secretaries, than the cleaning crew. We are dirt.”

“Didn’t they teach you anything in law school?” muttered Carole. “The secretaries have all the information! Make nice with the secretaries!”

“Okay, Ma. I’ll try,” said Connie. “I’ve got to go now.”

“Hold on,” cautioned Carole. “I got somebody here wants to talk to you. Your grandmere from Paree!” She handed the phone over to Polly, who had a big grin on her face.

“ Cherie !” she exclaimed. “You must let me take you to lunch.”

While Polly made plans to meet for lunch the next day, Carole wandered over to the window to check out the view. But she wasn’t really seeing it. Her thoughts were running round and round in her head, seeking the solution to what seemed an increasingly difficult question: Who killed Hosea Browne?