Killer Look

TWENTY

I walked up the steps to the main entrance of the Metropolitan Museum on Fifth Avenue at Eighty-Second Street. No matter how many times I had made the climb since my childhood, the elegance of the century-old building never failed to impress me. Its grand facade capped the setting on the edge of Central Park, long called the Gold Coast of Manhattan because of the mansions that had lined it in the city’s gilded age.

I had stopped at the Beach Café on Second Avenue on my way home from the morgue. I’d promised Mike that I wouldn’t do a Bloody Mary, but I needed a glass of wine with my chef’s salad. The second glass relaxed me even more.

When I got to my apartment, I was restless and agitated. I couldn’t focus on a book or newspaper, all my friends were either at work or with their kids, and I hated being ejected from the investigation.

It was that restlessness that propelled me to get out of the apartment and walk uptown to the museum. I wasn’t the least bit interested in culture at the moment, but I figured someone had to be setting up the Wolf Savage exhibition.

My membership card got me in the front door. I passed through the enormous Great Hall and made my way down the staircase to the newly renovated Anna Wintour Costume Center.

It was four o’clock and the doors were wide open. Two men high up on ladders were just inside the foyer, draping a black bunting over the large sign that announced the special exhibit: SAVAGE STYLE.

“Sorry, miss, but we’re closed at the moment. We’re doing an install for the show that opens on Monday,” one of the men said to me.

“Thanks very much. I’m not here to see the exhibit. I’m a friend of the family, actually,” I said, playing on my long association with Lily. “I live nearby. I just thought I might wander through and, you know-well-reflect a bit.”

“Not a problem. We clear all the galleries in an hour.”

“Understood.”

The rooms were darkened, with spots down-lighting the classic clothing, representing five continents over centuries of their manner of dress. I picked up a brochure from the front table, which described the 1946 merger of the once independent Museum of Costume Art with the Met, and its later elevation to an actual curatorial department.

The front gallery was exactly as I remembered it, with a permanent display of some of the 35,000 items and accessories that made up a historical record of fashionable lives since the fifteenth century.

There was no one at work as I strolled through the hall, past the 1850s British court dress crafted in exquisite blue silk with gold metallic-thread trim, the military uniform worn by a soldier in the Spanish-American War, and the sexy-looking pair of silk stockings from 1920.

I turned the corner to enter the second gallery and ran into two women fussing over a mannequin. This was definitely Wolf Savage’s turf, as I glanced around at the other wooden figures in the space.

“Need help?” one of them asked.

“Just looking.”

“Didn’t the guys out front tell you we’re closed?”

“Yes, but I-well, it’s an old family connection to Mr. Savage and I-”

“Oh, that’s all right then,” she said. “We work for the museum, but someone from his staff is in the next gallery. Just keep going.”

I didn’t see anyone in the third room. The lighting was dim and the space was tightly packed with decades of Wolf Savage designs.

You could trace the evolution of his work simply by looking at the level of sophistication and the more luxe fabrics that he began to use over time.

The sportswear that had first put WolfWear on the map was on show at the front of the room. It was playful and accessible, a very colorful mix of clothing that must have had a modest price point and broad appeal.

Mounted on a shelf on the wall to my right was his signature design WolfPak, a striking cross-body bag made first in denim, for $25, in the 1970s. Framed beside the prototype was the model of the bag featured last year on the cover of W magazine-in green alligator with a $5,000 price tag.

I stopped to admire an enlarged photograph of Savage himself, on the cover of Paris Match ten years ago, marking his triumph at Parisian Fashion Week. Beneath the smiling face of the designer, as he was exiting the Musée d’Orsay with a stunning woman on his arm, was the headline: COUP DE LOUP… the coup of the wolf.

“Are you lost, or didn’t you get the message that these galleries aren’t open?”

I heard the voice but didn’t see the speaker.

“Excuse me?”

“Down here, luv,” she said. “Try not to step on me, please.”

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, pulling her head out from beneath the full skirt of a ball gown that she was adjusting in some way.

“No worries,” I said, smiling at her. “I’m Alex. Alex Cooper.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” she said. “Because it doesn’t.”

She was a very attractive young woman, a few years younger than me, I guessed. Very slender with long limbs, short spiky auburn hair, and a gamine look about her.

“Not at all. I’m just introducing myself because-”

“No need. I’m too busy for tea at the moment. You ought to move along,” she said, disappearing under the skirt again.

“I-well, I know some members of the Savage family. I just thought-”

Her head popped out again. “Should have said so, luv. Then you’re not a trespasser after all.”

“Still, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

She uncrossed her long legs and stood up, brushing off her hands on her jeans. “I’m Tiz. Tiziana Bolt. Very sorry for your loss.”

There was a trace of a British accent in her speech, but it sounded very put-on.

“I can’t pretend to have been close to Mr. Savage himself. It’s actually been years since I saw him,” I said, remembering that Lily thought it very unlikely I’d met him at all. “I’m planning to come to the exhibit next week, but it just felt right to see if I could pop in because of-well, what a difficult time it’s been.”

“His spirit’s here, that’s for sure.”

“Do you-did you work with him?”

“More of a freelance thing,” Tiz said. “Velly was a friend, really. A good friend.”

“Velly?”

She toyed with some wisps of her hair. “Oh, just my name for him. He was born Velvel Savitsky. If you didn’t know that, you can read the background in the brochure you’ve got in your hand. Drove him crazy that I called him Velly, but then he counted on me driving him crazy.”

Tiziana Bolt tucked her thumbs in her rear jeans pockets. I supposed her remark was meant to be provocative. I’d get back to the question of their relationship in time.

“Yes. Yes, I knew that was his name,” I said. “I grew up with Lily, actually.”

“Lily? Who’s that?” I couldn’t see the expression on her face. Tiz had busied herself with smoothing the creases in the skirt of the navy-blue gown.

“Wolf’s oldest daughter,” I said. “Lily Savitsky.”

“Oh yeah. Heard about her, but I didn’t realize she was in the picture. Velly treated Reed like he was an only child,” Tiz said.

So much for Tanya. That still didn’t tell me whether this woman was close enough to anyone in the family-or the company-to have been in a position to know more.

“Strange,” I said, confident that the information about the connection between the two dead bodies in the morgue would be public by morning, “Lily always hinted that there was another sibling. I don’t know. Wives number three or four, I think. I should have paid more attention when she talked.”

“No shortage of wives was there?” Tiz said. “Mind if I keep working?”

“Please. Don’t let me get in the way.”

“Good to have company. Spooky in a big old museum when it’s so empty down here,” she said. “Would you hand me those gloves?”

I stooped to pick up a pair of elbow-length leather gloves from the floor and passed them to Tiz, who fitted them on to the fingers of the uncooperative mannequin.

“Did you say you worked for the company?” I asked.

“Once upon a time, but only for a nanosecond, when I first got out of school. Mostly I just freelance.”

“Wolf hired you to help with the exhibition?”

“You could say.”

“You must be very talented,” I said, trying another smile out on Tiziana to see whether I could loosen her tongue.

“Why’s that, luv? Because I can dress up a wooden doll?”

“Well, to be selected to prepare a major retrospective at the most iconic museum in the country. Is your background in design?”

“My background is nobody’s business, Alex,” Tiz said, looking me in the eye for the first time and laughing as she spoke. “My degree is in drama.”

“Let me guess. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. London.” I was jumping ahead, thinking she had met Wolf-or Reed-in England, where both had lived.

“Did I fool you with that accent? Pure Bronx it is,” Tiz said. “But in this business, if you can’t be a little bit exotic among all the garmentos, you might as well drive a truck. I can’t speak a lick of French, so I throw in a ‘luv’ every now and then and it’s what’s kept me employed for the last ten years or so. Downton Abbey is the new Versailles.”

“Pretty good deal. Doing what?”

“You’re scaring me, girl. Are you in the business too? Spying on me for Calvin or Giorgio?”

“No way,” I said, laughing with her. “It just interests me. I mean, fashion does.”

“Have a look around. You can see all the stages of Savage style.”

I circled several of the costumed mannequins, taking in their outfits but thinking of what I should be asking Tiziana Bolt.

“I can’t believe women dressed like that in the ’80s,” I said. “Look at the size of those shoulder pads.”

“Velly said it was this power thing that working women had in those days. Pinched, wasp-waisted suits with enormous shoulders,” Tiz said. “Looks like football players to me, but loads of ladies bought into it.”

“What does your company do?”

“My company? That’s a stretch. You’re looking at my company, Alex. Velly taught me to call myself a consultant, like everyone else who’s unemployed.”

“But it’s you who picked the clothing to make up the retrospective?”

She shook her head. “He did it himself, months ago. He took enormous pride in this display. He knew all his rivals would be eating their hearts out. The Institute always features its permanent collections and only does two special exhibitions a year. This is totally his moment.”

“So interesting,” I said. “But then so tragic with his death.”

“He’d be laughing at the irony,” Tiz said. “Talk about going out on top. Do you think any reporters would take on criticizing Wolf Savage after Monday night’s show? Nobody will dare speak ill of the dead.”

“It doesn’t quite matter if he can’t hear the praise.”

“Aren’t you Debbie Downer, luv.”

“Well, it is depressing, Tiz. We didn’t have a clue-I mean, according to Lily-that her father was ill.”

“Nobody did. He’s a very private guy, as you must have been aware. So private he rarely even mentioned having a daughter named Lily,” she said, moving on to reposition a black-sequined long dress that had a plunging neckline and lace cut-outs on both sides of the waist.

I didn’t know if the callous remark was Wolf’s thinking or Tiz’s interpretation.

“That’s a beauty,” I said.

“One of a kind. I sort of wish he’d knocked it off for his retail line. Velly designed it for Julia Roberts to wear to the Oscars, but she chose that black-and-white Valentino instead, which was featured everywhere,” Tiz said. “This one got lost with the also-nominated runner-ups. Pity, that.”

“I have to say your work sounds riveting to me.”

Tiz turned her head and gave me the once-over. “You don’t look exactly like a devotee of high style, Alex. Basic black head to toe with a splash of color around your face. Really? You can do better.”

“Anytime you want to give me a hand, I accept, Tiz.”

“You should have let Velly take you under his wing. That’s how he helped me get started.”

“What was that like? It must have been an amazing opportunity.”

“Pick one,” Tiz said to me. “Do you like this sheer white blouse-or the same one in silver lamé?”

She held the sheer one close to her body and threw back her head, striking a pose.

“You’ve clearly done some modeling, haven’t you?” I asked.

“Till he rescued me, like I was saying.”

“From what?”

“That life, luv. I’m the type who never made the runway for the big shows. I was just what they call a fit model,” Tiz said. “You know what that is?”

“I think so. Aren’t they the ones who work in the top studios-the body on which a designer makes his clothes?”

“Exactly,” she said, buttoning the sheer white blouse in place without waiting for my answer.

Tiziana Bolt said the name of the man who spotted her when she was vacationing with her boyfriend in the Caribbean. She was seventeen at the time. “Ever hear of him?”

“I don’t recognize his name,” I said.

“Flash in the pan, luv. You think I’m thin now? This guy thought the starting point for his upscale clothing line should be a girl on the brink of hospitalization from starvation,” Tiz said. “He basically limited my intake to diet sodas and unfiltered cigarettes. Sure, I had that young, coltish look. Almost six feet tall and built like a prepubescent boy, I was. The crew called me his in-house skeleton. And that was before he started me on cocaine.”

“The man you worked for-a known designer-started you on drugs?”

“And here I was worried you might be a journalist and I’m just shooting my mouth off to you.”

“No, no. I’m not a journalist.”

“I haven’t been to confession in fifteen years, but it’s very comfortable talking to you,” Tiz said. “Must be the Savitsky connection.”

“Probably so.”

“You’re shocked? You really have to be an outsider to this biz not to know that one of the ways models get through endless hours of shoots is being drugged,” Tiz said. “Couldn’t do it stone sober. Ever hear a model say she’s hot?”

“I don’t know any models, I don’t think.”

“One of the classic signs of anorexia is that light fuzz-you know, hair-that begins to grow on your face and arms,” she said. “It’s a response to the body trying to keep itself warm when it doesn’t have any fat on it. You could have dropped me in the middle of the Sahara Desert in those days, wearing a mink coat and combat boots, and I still wouldn’t have felt the least bit hot.”

“Drugs and an eating disorder,” I said. “That’s a deadly combination.”

“At seventeen? I was truly the walking dead.”

“But you couldn’t leave this guy?”

“Really, Alex. I guess you don’t know much about addiction,” Tiz said. “He had me totally hooked on coke, and equally handcuffed by the big salary. I had no education, no training to do anything else.”

“What stopped it? What got you sober?” I asked.

“My boss was a stoner, too,” she said, adjusting the wide-brimmed hat on the last mannequin, slanting it to give her a sexier air. “One night after he debuted his spring line during Fashion Week, he was texting back and forth with his boyfriend. Sexting’s the better word. This one was all over the tabs at the time. Ring a bell?”

“Not yet.”

“You must live a really secluded life, Alex. You’ll have to tell me what you do,” Tiz said. “Anyway, he took photos of his private parts, and instead of texting them to his lover, they wound up on his Twitter feed with the words “TOUCH ME!”

“Of course I know who you’re talking about. I do remember that. The Post had a field day with that story.”

“Well, it served to put that jackass out of business, and I wound up in rehab. Hazelden, in Center City, Minnesota-the butt end of nowhere.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” I said.

“You bet it did. Nineteen years old and totally washed-up. All the money I hadn’t spent on vintage designer clothes, I spent on six months of inpatient rehab.”

Tiz walked over to the rack of WolfWear that was standing against the far wall. She pulled a leather coat off its hanger and draped it over her slim shoulders, topping the look with a felt cloche hat and vogueing a bit as she walked toward me.

“I showed up at breakfast one morning, sporting a Balenciaga dress that I picked up at a thrift shop in SoHo for thirty-five bucks. Black silk, trimmed with hot-pink lace,” Tiz said. “Over the top for rehab, but it gets so damn dull there by your third month in. I wore pretty outrageous stuff, just to keep myself sane, but nobody ever noticed.”

“I’m sure they noticed you.”

“That day, there’s a new guy at the table. Older than my dad, but totally got my sense of style. Checks me out head to toe the minute I drag into the room, then points at me, kind of cocking his thumb and finger like it was a gun. ‘You got a killer look, girl. You got a real killer look.’”

“Wolf Savage,” I said, recognizing the signature compliment that Hal told us about just that morning.

Tiziana Bolt smiled at me again. “You do know him, Alex. You’ve heard that line before.”

“Wolf Savage was at Hazelden?” I said. “You met him in rehab?”

“He went by Velvel Savitsky out there. Much more hush-hush that way,” Tiz said. “Less likely to wind up in the newspapers. See my point? You’re his daughter’s friend and you didn’t even know about it, did you?”

“Not a clue,” I said. There were endless layers that Mike and I would need to peel back to know more about Wolf Savage.

“That’s when I nicknamed him Velly, ’cause I knew who he was from the moment I laid eyes on him. He’d have been busted out there if I called him Wolf-you know, if people in rehab actually knew who he was. Besides, the Velvel bit just cracked me up. Nothing he could do about it,” Tiz said, putting the coat back on the rack. “That man had a wicked addiction to Oxycontin.”