Manor of Dying

by Kathleen Bridge

  “The emerald satin Worth gown fit Ms. Stockton in all the right places.” Elle giggled. “I mean Zoe, as she asked me to call her. She seemed thrilled with it, and also the rhinestone jewelry.”

  “It was perfect,” Felicity said. “I sent the photos to our costume designer. I know she’ll be thrilled to make a copy.”

  “A copy?” I asked.

  “Yes, it’s important to have more than one dress in case it gets damaged. Plus, Elle, she’ll be able to return your dress to you afterward.”

  “But Zoe will wear my dress for the actual filming, right?”

  “It’s up to you. If you want to take the chance that something might ruin it?” Felicity answered.

  “Oh, I’ll take the chance. Just to see it on the screen.” Elle’s grin went from ear to ear.

  “You might want to reconsider, Elle,” I said, teasing, “I always wondered if the squibs holding fake blood stain clothing.”

  “I don’t think Zoe gets shot in the pilot,” Felicity said. “Not so sure about Dillon.” She smiled. “Costume is just as important in a period piece as the set design.” Felicity passed Elle her phone to show her how Zoe had looked in front of the baby grand piano in the corner of the huge room they were sitting in. “I thought she looked stunning. When our costume designer, Pat, returns from maternity leave, she told me to tell you, Elle, that she plans on coming to visit your shop and rent a few more articles of clothing from your collection.”

  “That would be fabulous. Anytime. I have to admit, I’m surprised that Zoe would travel this far to try on a dress. I could’ve brought a few selections to Manhattan, as I told you.”

  “To be honest,” Felicity said, lowering her voice and leaning closer, “I’ve heard it through the grapevine that they weren’t too happy about filming in such a secluded location in the middle of winter. Originally an estate on the mainland in Southampton had been chosen. At the last minute the director changed his mind and switched it to Nightingale Manor. He doesn’t want anyone coming on set and passing on any spoilers to the press.”

  “I know a few canines that will be thrilled to be on Shelter Island,” I said.

  Felicity laughed. “You got that right. Murphy and Max, along with their trainer, have been following Zoe and Dillon around for the past month. Bob told me it’s very important that the dogs get familiar with the actors. Especially for a miniseries that might go on for multiple seasons.”

  Before leaving, Bob and the pups had given Elle, Felicity and me a small preview of the dogs’ range of acting. Starting with the simple act of rolling over and playing dead, all the way to fetching a newspaper and a pair of slippers for Dillon/Jack Winslow. The best part was to see the affection the dogs had for their trainer. I’d always wondered if animal actors enjoyed their jobs. In Murphy and Max’s case, the answer was a resounding Yes! The excitement about what went into a project like Mr. & Mrs. Winslow was contagious. I said, “You must love your job, Felicity. By the way, who is writing the teleplays?”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard of him. It’s his first television miniseries, but he’s done adapted feature film screenplays from his bestselling novels before. Even won a few awards.”

  Why did I know what she was going to say next?

  “Patrick Seaton.”

  My hand trembled and my cup clattered against its saucer.

  Elle said, “Meg, what’s that weird look on you face?” Then it hit her. “Patrick Seaton is your poetry on the beach pen pal!”

  I gave her a piercing look. Which she ignored.

  Elle furrowed her dark brows. “Wow, that’s crazy.”

  “So, you know him? I met him once,” Felicity said. “He seemed very quiet and unassuming. And very attractive. But I’m happily married,” she added, holding up her left hand.

  “Do you think he’ll come out here? Uh, while we’re working?” I stammered.

  “Don’t think so. At least not until we start filming. Once a screenplay is written we have to wait to see how it goes. I’ve sent him pictures of the interior spaces we’re using, so he might want to come check it out in person.”

  I coughed, feeling like I’d swallowed a bitter pill that went down the wrong pipe. While Elle and Felicity talked about how hard it was for newlywed Felicity to go away on location without her husband, I thought about what would happen if I ran into Patrick at Nightingale Manor. And why did I feel like I was betraying Cole just thinking about it? Only a few months ago, I’d dated Byron Hughes and Cole at the same time and hadn’t felt remorse. Well, perhaps a tad.

  When I’d moved to Montauk, on my first morning walking the beach, I’d found melancholy lines from classical poetry written in the sand in front of Patrick’s oceanfront cottage. I still remembered the passage from Emerson that he’d left, Sorrow makes us all children again. Destroys all differences of intellect.

  I forced myself to return to Elle and Felicity’s conversation but found my mind wandering back to Patrick Seaton. His sandy-blond tousled hair and changeable green eyes had made their impression on me. Another thing that added to his attraction was the scarred greyhound that he’d recently rescued named Charley. Giving myself a mental slap, I said in a too-loud voice, “These cranberry muffins are to die for.”

  “You’re right,” Felicity said. “Willa makes a mean muffin. Wait until you try her orange Christmas scones, she adds just a hint of clove.”

  “I’ve already had two muffins,” Elle said. Proof was in the large muffin crumb nestled on top of a rhinestone pin on her chest.

  As if the housekeeper knew we were talking about her, she bustled toward us carrying our coats in her ample arms. “Here you go,” Willa said, placing them on top of a huge ottoman fronting a wing chair near the fireplace. “It’s stopped snowing, but the wind’s picked up and is howling like a banshee.” Willa was short like Felicity and Elle, but probably weighed fifty pounds more. She had short auburn hair that fell in relaxed curls. Her alert hazel eyes stood out in her round, rosy-cheeked face. I guessed she was somewhere in her early forties. Her best feature was an easy smile that made her immediately likeable.

  I stood, then went over to the ottoman. Before grabbing my jacket, I asked Willa, “Could you please direct me to the restroom?”

  Elle gave me a questioning look and pointed to her watch.

  I pantomimed drinking a cup of tea to reiterate that I really needed to use the bathroom. It wasn’t a ploy to check out the rest of the place. But now that I thought about it, I wouldn’t mind opening a few doors for a quick look-see.

  “Of course, Meg. Follow me,” Willa said.

  Felicity had told us that when the cast and crew came for the filming, they planned on shooting in the east wing and kitchen only. The west wing had been shut off, and that’s where we’d be digging out items to inventory and use on set. The second-floor bedrooms in the west wing would be where the cast and crew stayed. It seemed our job not only entailed inventorying the items in the west wing but also organizing and redistributing items in the bedrooms to make room for the crew.

  We exited the drawing room, as Willa called it, and turned right. I followed Willa down a carpeted hallway. For only being about five feet tall, she sure walked at a brisk pace. She stopped and pointed. “The second-to-last door on your left.”

  “Thanks, Willa. Are you prepared for the barrage of film crew and actors that will be arriving after the holidays?”

  “I look forward to the commotion. We’re pretty isolated out here. Blake and Sabrina are usually in Palm Beach for the winter, but this year, um . . . they’ve decided to stay. I always have my son come for winter break, but this year her highness has forbidden him to come.” She’d gritted her jaw and a vein at her temple became visible. I assumed her highness must be Mrs. Nightingale, Dr. Blake’s wife.

  I didn’t have a response, so I said, “Thanks,” and continued down the hall. I wanted to question her further about why the Nightingales would give up Palm Beach. But it was none of my business. I could only conje
cture that it had something to do with the loss of cashflow after the good doctor’s TV show, Bungled, was canceled. I could think of one person who didn’t think of Blake Nightingale as a good doctor, the maimed woman who’d called him a charlatan.

  I started toward the door she’d mentioned. When I looked back, I saw Willa had disappeared. I kept walking. Passing the bathroom, I stopped at the last door on the left. Something about a door at the end of a dark hallway intrigued me. I turned the doorknob and opened the door to find cement stairs leading downward.

  The basement.

  Chapter 4

  I broke out in a sweat. I knew Elle was waiting and we had a ferry to catch. Plus, we’d be coming back the day after tomorrow to start our inventorying and staging. I’d learned from my online search of Nightingale Manor and the murder of Arden Hunter that the operating rooms were in the basement. I had no desire to scout out the long-ago murder scene. I wasn’t the type to slow down to look at car accidents on the side of the road; I’d just say a prayer and move on. What I wanted to see was a preview of the antiques we’d have the privilege of inventorying to use on the set of the miniseries.

  Or so I told myself.

  I crept down. Near the bottom of the steps was a gray metal door with a glass window enmeshed with crisscrossed steel wire. I pressed my nose against the glass. My reflection was as frightening as anything I might find on the other side of the door: shoulder-length blonde hair spiked out in all directions except on top, where it was flattened from my knit hat. Frankenstein’s monster had nothing on me. My face and pale blue eyes looked ghostly. I could easily fit in as a mental patient of yore, reminding me of the poor rag doll Max had presented me earlier.

  Centering my gaze between the wire in the glass, I saw a cement-floored room. Florescent lights flicked on and off, revealing two metal gurneys laying on their sides. Black cushions that must have gone with the gurneys were stacked inside a huge metal bathtub-type contraption. Against the far brick wall, where sickly yellow paint peeled into curling shards, was a hospital bed. It looked like it was waiting for its next customer. On top of the bed’s striped mattress were thick leather straps arranged in neat horizontal lines at three strategic places: chest, waist, and ankles. The buckles on the restraints were rusted with age, the rust resembling dried blood. Was that the exact bed where Arden Hunter’s attempted lobotomy took place? Ending with her murder by her frenemy Marian Fortune? My hand automatically reached for the doorknob, half hoping it would be locked to keep the modern-day world, myself included, away from the horrors beyond.

  I put my hand on the knob and took it off a dozen times. I rationalized that I’d just take a quick peek and head back upstairs with no one the wiser. I turned the knob. The door didn’t budge.

  Relief set in, but curious cat that I was, I tugged harder. The door opened, and I went barreling backward. My tailbone hit the lip of the bottom step. I screeched, “Son of a biscuit eater!” One of my tough-cop father’s favorite expletives.

  I didn’t have to turn to read the lips of the person standing at the top of stairs. His voice, amplified by my hearing aids, reverberated with, “What the hell are you doing down there! And who the hell are you?”

  I managed to pull myself up with the help of the steel banister. I turned slowly, pain shooting up my spine. I bit my bottom lip, not wanting to complain to the person with the menacing voice. Climbing halfway up the stairs, I finally lifted my head to see a tall man with slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair. He wore tan pants, a crisp white button-down shirt, and a navy blazer with a silk pocket square. Even in the dim light, his amber eyes reminded me of a wolf’s. I’d seen his face in a few Southampton society photos and in the trailer I’d watched on YouTube of Bungled. Staring down at me was Dr. Blake Nightingale. And he wasn’t a happy camper.

  I brushed off his insolent stare and climbed a few more steps, the pain excruciating. What was the big deal? Soon Elle and I would be checking out the whole house for period items to use on the show’s set. I had every right to look around the place. Didn’t I? But something about Blake Nightingale made me feel uneasy and very small. Did I think the doctor took after his grandfather and was planning to perform secret lobotomies on his cosmetic surgery patients? Or me?

  Maybe I did. Because when I said to him, “Sorry, Blake. Thought Willa told me the last door on the left was the powder room,” my hands were shaking so violently that I had to put them behind my back. I took the remaining steps to meet him face-to-face. Or face-to-chest.

  “Call me Dr. Blake,” he admonished, “and why would you think we would have a bathroom, or powder room, as you call it, in the basement? Try again.”

  He wasn’t my doctor, I thought. Why did I have to call him Dr. Blake? Contrary to my shaky knees, we were equals. I giggled then stammered, “I was surprised, but you never know in old mansions like these.”

  He continued to hold the door open. There was a cruel turn to his mouth, nothing like how he presented himself on the clips from Bungled. “Are you going to pass through? Or just look at me. This door should have been locked.”

  My lip already bruised, I bit the inside of my cheek, literally, to keep from giving it back to him. This job is my bread and butter, this job is my bread and butter, I kept repeating to myself.

  There was silence, but I got his drift. I hadn’t made a good first impression. But I’d done worse.

  I hurried away, following the hallway that led back to the foyer. Elle was probably having a conniption about how long I’d been gone. The walk down the hallway seemed miles longer than when I’d followed it earlier. I felt Dr. Blake’s sharp gaze burning into my back like a branding iron. One disadvantage to having a hearing loss was even with my hearing aids turned on to their highest volume, I couldn’t hear anyone sneaking up behind me. I turned my head slightly and saw out of the corner of my eye that he was catching up. I walked faster. Right before I made the left turn into the foyer, I looked behind once more, just in time to see him disappear inside a room only a few feet away. I froze when I heard loud voices.

  Snoop that I was, I turned and doubled back.

  The door was ajar. I saw the doctor with his back to me. He was standing in front of a man who looked familiar. Then I got it. The man was Langston Reed. He must be the director of Mr. & Mrs. Winslow. I almost didn’t recognize him from when we’d met at the Hamptons International Film Festival. A Where’s Waldo red-and-white scarf was coiled around his neck, covering his trademark beard. His shaggy dark hair was peppered with gray and almost fell to his shoulders. It was his frosty blue eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses that gave him away. They were almost the same shade as Cole’s. The only difference was Langston’s eyes were smaller and he had numerous laugh lines etched next to them. Cole rarely laughed, which didn’t bother me because when he did, you knew it was genuine. Just like Cole’s admission the last time we’d been together that he’d thought he was falling in love with me. I hadn’t known what to do with that and had responded with a quick, “I feel the same way.” I really did, but we barely saw each other. Plus, when he’d said it, it was almost as if he’d done it grudgingly. Maybe it had to do with Cole refusing to move from the North Carolina coast where his yacht company was located, and me not wanting to leave Montauk and my Cottages by the Sea business. We were two stubborn idiots. I’d worked hard for my serenity and didn’t plan to change my life for a man. Even if he was the most attractive, albeit moody, dark, and mysterious guy I’d ever met. When we were together it was good. Better than good. I didn’t want to jeopardize it with resentments—either his or mine. “If it was meant to be, it will happen. And you’ll have no doubts.” Words that Georgia, the proprietor of Old Man and the Sea books, said to me while we were reclining in warmed salt chairs at the Montauk Salt Caves. “You ever see the movie Sleepless in Seattle?” Georgia had asked. “The scene in the attic with Meg Ryan’s character and the actress playing her mother? ‘You’ll just know.’” Had Georgia been kidding? I remembered watching Sleepless i
n Seattle, first on VHS tape at age seven with my mother. Now, I owned it on Blu-ray. If it came out in 3-D, I would buy that too.

  I inched closer to the door and saw Langston had his hand resting on an open filing cabinet drawer. I stepped back and flattened myself against the wall. In the same overbearing tone as he’d used with me, I heard Dr. Blake say, “Mr. Reed, what are you doing in here? This office is off limits. And what the hell are you doing riffling through my filing cabinets? I said you can rent the house and the furniture; however, I didn’t say you could go through my personal files.”

  I heard Langston’s calm voice, “I was under the impression that the entire main house was at our disposal. Excuse me if I’m off the mark on that. I was looking for old files from back when this house was a mental hospital. Thought it might give us a feeling for the time period of the miniseries. Don’t worry. Not looking for anything about the old murder. The time line is all wrong, although it would make a great documentary, maybe combine it with your bungled career. Two medical tragedies involving grandfather and grandson.”

  “A what? Are you crazy? A documentary? And why would I have anything of my grandfather’s in my filing cabinets. I haven’t seen anything of his in ages. Yes, you might get full use of the house, but when your crew arrives, and I move to the caretaker’s cottage, I plan on taking everything in my home office with me. Obviously.”

  Peering in, I wanted to view the expression on Langston’s face to see if he was intimidated by the doctor.

  Nope. He didn’t appear frightened at all. Especially after he sidled up to Dr. Blake and said in a threatening tone, “Well, Doctor, if my presence in the house is not going to work out we can tell Mr. Prentice, who holds the purse strings, and see if we can’t find another location for our little project. Whaddya say? Should I call him in?”