All Dressed in White (Under Suspicion #2)(8)

“You know, Brett, we can’t guarantee that we’re going to solve every case.” So far, they were two for two. In both previous specials, the people involved in the cases had cooperated with the production and let their guards down when host Alex Buckley had questioned them. It wouldn’t always happen like that.


Brett tapped his fingers on his desk, a signal that others should be quiet while he was thinking. As Grace irreverently put it, “He thinks with his fingers.” A handsome man with sculptured features and a full head of iron-gray hair, at age sixty-one he was biting to the point of cruelty and equally brilliant in his success as a renowned producer.

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, what matters is that viewers think you might, and they want to be there when it happens. Tell me what you have for the next case.”

Laurie thought of the notes she had prepared in her kitchen the previous night while Timmy played video games after dinner. Three cases. She suspected that the murdered medical professor would be Brett’s top choice. Because of a bitter divorce, both his wife and father-in-law were natural suspects. He’d begun seeing a woman who herself was recently divorced, so the new girlfriend’s husband was also on the list. Plus there was an academic colleague who accused him of stealing research. Not to mention a disgruntled student who had flunked his anatomy class. It was a perfect case for their show.

Also on Laurie’s list was the case of a little boy who had been murdered in Oregon, whose stepmother was the leading suspect. It was a good case, but whenever Laurie started to think about the violence that had been inflicted against a nine-year-old boy, she thought of her own son, and would find herself looking at other possibilities.

The third case on the list was the killing of two sisters thirty years earlier. Laurie found the case fascinating, but suspected that Brett would think a thirty-year delay would make the case too cold to capture viewers’ attention.

Now all those notes remained on a legal pad in her briefcase.

“I know I told you I had a few ideas, but one of them clearly stands out.” For her sake, and for Sandra’s, she hoped Brett would agree.





8





Walter Pierce stood in his office overlooking a production floor at Ladyform’s factory in Raleigh, North Carolina. Most CEOs would have opted by now for a fancy office on a high floor in a skyscraper, far removed from the everyday employees who worked in manufacturing. But Walter prided himself on running Ladyform as a traditional, family-owned business whose products were all designed and made in the United States. He was a large man, tall and burly, with a monk’s ring of hair around a jowled face.

When his great-grandfather first started this company, women were still transitioning from corsets to brassieres, a change galvanized by the metal shortage in World War I. As he was proud to say, “The change reportedly saved more than fifty million pounds of metal, enough to build two battleships.”

In the beginning Ladyform had one North Carolina factory manned by thirty workers. Now Ladyform maintained not only the original factory here, but also operations in Detroit, San Antonio, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Sacramento, not to mention the offices in New York.

As he looked down at the busy scene below, he thought how Amanda had been the one who pushed for Ladyform to have a New York City presence. At the time she was still in college, but she was a straight-A student with savvy business sense. “Dad, we need to bring the brand into the future,” she had told him. “Women my age think of Ladyform as frumpy girdles that their mothers and grandmothers wear. We need women to see us as the company that helps them look and feel better in their own bodies.” She had so many ideas about rebranding—designing garments that were both fun and comfortable, modernizing the logo, and adding a line of sports clothing so that the brand represented, as she said, the female form instead of “the underwear people,” he thought sadly.

Walter knew he would have rejected Amanda’s advice had it not been for Sandra. He had come home one night from work to find her waiting for him at the kitchen table. He could tell from her stern expression that it was time for “a talk.” She insisted that he sit down across from her so she could tell him something.

“Walter, you’re a wonderful husband and, in your own way, a loving father,” she had begun briskly. “And because of that, I don’t try to change you or tell you what to do. But you have pushed and pushed and pushed our children to share your passion for the family business.”

“I’ve also insisted that all the children were free to do whatever they wanted,” he had answered heatedly. But even as he spoke the words, Walter felt a twinge at the thought of Ladyform ever going forward without a Pierce at the helm.

“Good for you,” Sandra snapped. “But may I remind you that you’ve pushed so hard that our son wants nothing to do with it and has moved all the way to Seattle so he can do something all on his own at the other end of the country. On the other hand, Amanda and Charlotte have done everything you’ve asked. They do it because they love you and desperately want your approval. And let’s face it, Amanda’s the one who has really poured herself into the company. Her ideas are spot-on, Walter, and if you ignore them outright, you will absolutely crush her. I’m telling you, I won’t stand for it.”


So without ever telling Amanda about her mother’s intervention, he had approved Amanda’s request to open and head a New York office handling the design, marketing, and sales divisions of the company, Walter remembered. Amanda and Charlotte worked there, and he stayed put at the main manufacturing facility in Raleigh.