The Affliction

by Beth Gutcheon

  Phillips hadn’t thought about it. She didn’t do yard work.

  “Could be somewhere else?”

  “Like the studio?”

  “Maybe the basement.” She pointed to the back of the house, where there was a basement hatch.

  “Good thought,” said Bark, making another note.

  They went into the house through a side door and found themselves in a quiet sunroom. It was neat and bright and looked unused, at least in this season. The rooms here were relatively small, with low ceilings, typical of a farmhouse designed to be heated with wood. There was a small but cozy front parlor that also looked unused. Across the entry hall was a formal dining room, and beyond it the new kitchen, with (as Phillips had expected) a table that looked to be where the family really ate, a state of the art cooking theater, and at the far end, cushiony furniture arranged around the huge screen against one wall.

  They heard a toilet flush and a door open, and a small woman with iron gray curls, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, walked into the room, jumped and yelped in surprise. Then she laughed and put a hand over her heart.

  “Sorry,” said Phillips. “We didn’t know anyone was here. Detective Phillips, and this is Detective Bark.”

  The woman was still laughing at her fright and taking deep breaths to calm herself.

  “I’m Jean. Mrs. Hollister’s housekeeper.” She waved her hand in front of her face, as if to cool herself down. “Mercy Maude. Okay, I’m going to live.”

  “We’ve been down at the fire, and talked to Mr. Hollister. He said we were welcome to come in.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are, I just . . . Whew. Well tell me how I can help. If I can. I’m just about to go down to the cottage to get to work. I understand Lily had a sleepover down there.”

  “We’ve been there,” said Phillips.

  “Looks like a pack of wolverines been through?”

  Phillips laughed. “Pretty much.”

  “Terrible about the fire,” said Bark.

  “I heard the fire bell ring in the town before dawn,” said Jean. “I said to my husband, ‘bad news for somebody,’ but I never thought . . . I was just that shocked when I come up the driveway.”

  “Any idea what caused it?”

  “Mr. Hollister said something blew up. He was crying, he was so upset.”

  “I gather he had all his artwork and records in there,” said Bark.

  “And his car. He just loved that car. My brother has an old Mustang convertible he restored himself. We all go to the car show over in Rhinebeck every year and he won a prize for it once. But it’s nothing like that car of Mr. Hollister’s. It’s Italian. You could see your face in the chrome, he took such care of it.”

  “So he drove it regularly?”

  “I wouldn’t say regularly. But in good weather.”

  “Has he had it out this spring?”

  “Yes, he had it out a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Do you remember when?”

  Jean suddenly stopped. Up to now, they’d been talking about what everyone was talking about. The fire. Mr. Hollister’s car. Why would they want to know when the car was driven?

  “I’m sorry—tell me who you are, again?”

  “We’re detectives with the White Plains police,” said Bark.

  “White Plains?” That wasn’t very near here. They could see the question marks begin to form above her head.

  “We met Mr. Hollister when we were investigating a case down where Lily goes to school. We came up to talk to him about it.”

  “So you’re not here because of the fire?”

  “No.”

  “He said we were welcome to come in and look around,” said Bark.

  After a tiny beat, Jean said, “All righty then. I just finished in here, and I haven’t done upstairs yet, if you don’t mind. I thought I ought to tackle the guesthouse while I still have the courage.”

  “Don’t let us keep you. We’ll find you before we leave, if we have questions.”

  “Okey dokey,” said Jean.

  “This the door to the basement?” Bark asked.

  Jean said, “That’s my broom closet. Basement stairs are around here.” She opened the door to a long, dank, nineteenth-century flight of wooden stairs. A stale smell of earth and mold rose from below.

  “Anything we should know about what’s down there?”

  Jean flipped on the light for them. “It’s a cellar.”

  “Right. Thanks for your help,” Phillips said. Jean went back to the broom closet and they heard her gather her cleaning supplies as they went down the stairs.

  “She has to ask Hollister if she should talk to us,” Phillips said.

  “Yes. Good jobs not thick on the ground in this neck of the woods.”

  They found no gas cans in the basement, but nothing else that aroused suspicion. There were some old paint cans containing, it appeared from the drips, a supply of the shade on the outside trim of the house. Someone kept the grounds looking shipshape; they should find out who. There were some old clothes racks probably from before the farmhouse boasted a washer and dryer. There was a dark low corner that looked as if it had once been a root cellar. A new furnace, oil burning. Cross-country skis and snowshoes hung neatly from one wall. A heap of packing boxes and old suitcases. The usual. They opened them all.

  They went back upstairs and walked slowly through the first floor, studying family photographs, looking at outgoing mail in the bowl on the kitchen table. Nothing jumped out. They went up to the second floor. There they found two guest bedrooms that shared a bathroom at the end of the hall. Another room with its own bath, clearly Lily’s. There were swimming and diving ribbons on a cork board, and a couple of trophies on the bookshelves, along with pictures of Lily at various ages, often wearing a competition swimsuit. The room was neat, though the bathroom showed signs that teenagers had recently been through. Various kinds of makeup lay on the sink counter, and the makeup mirror’s light had been left on. A half-empty bottle of peach schnapps stood on the toilet tank.

  “You think they let her drink that?” Bark asked.

  “Probably a trophy of some kind. I once kept a half pack of cigarettes for a couple of years some boy had dropped.”

  “Really? Some random boy?”

  “Some guy I thought was hot. He had five o’clock shadow and a motorcycle.”

  The master bedroom was definitely occupied. It was a larger room than the others; with its huge bathroom and two dressing rooms, it occupied the entire upstairs space of the new addition. The bed was unmade, and by the side of the bed that they guessed was Hugo’s there was a box of tissues, a thermometer, and a bottle of cough syrup. They opened drawers and went through closets. The bedroom windows overlooked the pool and studio; Hugo would have had a front row seat for the fireball.

  In the bathroom, Bark took extra care with the cabinet that held the shaving gear and manly toiletries. He took pictures of the labels on a couple of vials of pills.

  “Guy has a massive case of acid reflux,” he said.

  “Good,” said Phillips. “Any other interesting meds?”

  “Some I don’t recognize. We’ll check it out.”

  “Are we done here?”

  “I am. Let’s go see what Jean has for us.”

  Downstairs, they went out by the kitchen door and met Hugo trudging toward them. He looked exhausted and ill.

  “You okay?” Bark said.

  “No,” said Hugo.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you. I’m going back to bed.”

  He passed them and stepped up to the kitchen door.

  “We’re just going to have a word with your housekeeper and then we’ll be on our way,” said Bark. Hugo nodded without looking at them and went inside. They watched through the window as he moved heavily through the kitchen and out of sight, heading for the stairs.

  “Is it illegal to burn down your own studio?” Phillips asked.

  “Not unless you claim on
the insurance or blame someone else.”

  They looked at each other.

  Jean had the guesthouse kitchen transformed. The refrigerator shone; the small range was spotless, the pizza boxes were gone, and there were three large black garbage bags by the door along with cans and bottles in clear plastic. There were a lot of weekenders in town who had gotten the dump rules all changed and now you had to sort everything or pay a fine. They kept changing the rules too. Whiteboard was recyclable but not dirty pizza boxes, although they were made of whiteboard, as far as she could tell. She did her best.

  She was just about to get upstairs to the bedrooms when those two detectives sidled in.

  “You find what you needed?” she asked.

  “For now. We just came down to finish up what we were talking about before.”

  “What was that?”

  “About the Maserati. Mr. Hollister’s car. You said he had it out recently.”

  “Yes, he did. He always does when the weather turns warm.”

  “Do you remember when that was?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t tell you. A couple of weeks ago.”

  “I see. And was this on a weekend?”

  “I work on Tuesdays or Wednesdays off-season, depending.”

  “Depending on what?”

  “My other jobs. I help an older lady when she needs me, take her to doctor visits or shopping.”

  “I see. So, midweek.”

  “You don’t work on weekends?” Phillips asked.

  “I do, but not here. I clean at the church on Saturdays. I only come in on Sundays if Mrs. Hollister is here with a party. That doesn’t usually happen until summer. I wasn’t here at all last week because we went to my niece’s wedding in New Hampshire, so I came today.”

  “So you saw the Maserati in the driveway when you got to work on a Wednesday? Three weeks ago, maybe? A month? Less?”

  “Yes.” She was not liking this.

  “It was out when you got here.”

  “I said yes.”

  “And it was still out when you left?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where was Mr. Hollister?”

  “He was in and out.”

  “You mean he left the property?”

  “I mean in and out between here and the studio. Like always.”

  “And do you clean the studio?”

  “No, he does that himself. He has his art in there.”

  “So he didn’t leave the property that day.”

  “I didn’t say that. I think he went off in the afternoon.”

  “In the Maserati?”

  “Yes. I think he did. I remember seeing it buzzing down the driveway. I think it was that day.”

  “Was his own car in the driveway too?”

  “What?”

  “His SUV. Was it in the driveway that day? When you got here?”

  “It must have been.”

  “But you don’t remember for sure?”

  “No. But how else would he have gotten here?”

  “Good question. You’re sure you can’t remember which Wednesday it was.”

  She looked at him, then briefly at Phillips. “Or Tuesday. They all blend together.”

  After a long pause, Bark said, “Thank you very much for your time. If we need to, can we talk to you again?”

  She shrugged.

  “Could we have a number?”

  She gave him one, then started up the stairs, carrying empty trash bags and a vacuum cleaner.

  They drove south in silence. Finally, Phillips said, “So he drives Florence’s car from Rye to Hatfield, with Florence in it, dead or alive. He pulls out the Maserati, parks Florence’s car in the car hole, and does whatever he has to do. Plenty of time to clean up whatever he has to. Plenty of time to wipe prints off everything. Then he drives the car back in the dead of night Thursday morning and dumps the body.”

  “But we can’t prove it.”

  “If Florence was here, dead or alive, there would have been traces somewhere.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What the hell would have tipped him off? Why burn the studio now?”

  “Maybe it was a coincidence,” Bark said.

  Phillips looked at him, even though she was driving seventy miles an hour.

  “Kidding,” said Bark glumly.

  After a beat she said, “So now what do we do?”

  “I have no idea. Wait to hear what the arson squad makes of the fire, I guess.”

  As they approached their exit, Phillips said, “We should let Maggie Detweiler know, shouldn’t we?”

  Bark nodded.

  But Maggie already knew. Lily’s mother had called the school during lunch to tell her what had happened, and Lily had returned to the dining hall looking as if she’d seen a ghost. She had told Steph, who told Ann and Melanie, and soon it was all over the room. Oh, the schadenfreude, the thrill of disaster that happened to somebody else. A terrible fire! At Lily’s country house! Steph and Ann and Melanie were just there! Nobody died, but they could have, and her dad’s whole office is gone, his Ferrari burned up, all these masterpiece paintings he had in there . . .

  Maggie was sitting with Pam Moldower when the news blew through the dining hall. It was interesting to watch it spread. Maggie watched the way the girls sorted themselves, Friends of Lily displaying sympathy and shock, and others who weren’t so close to Lily leaning their heads together, buzzing about how they would feel if their country houses burned down. Pools of alarm and excitement eddied in the wider sea of adolescents to whom the news was of milder interest, or none.

  Maggie’s attention was snagged by the sight of Alison Casey. She was sitting with some younger girls who suddenly buzzed with excitement. One of them got her phone out, though this was not supposed to happen at meals, and was passing it around the table. Maggie could guess what was on it; the photographs posted by Lily’s friends this past weekend. The pool, the glamorous car, the studio. lily with her sister Steph had titled the picture of Lily with the car.

  What interested her particularly was the stricken expression on Alison’s face. She had turned to look at Lily. And Lily was sitting very quietly, her face drained of color. Steph said something to her, and it took her two tries to get Lily’s attention. Then Lily briefly shook her head, stood, and walked out of the dining hall without busing her dishes. Maggie and Pam watched her go.

  After a thoughtful pause, Maggie asked, “By the way, who are the girls Alison Casey is with?”

  “Freshmen,” said Pam. “They’re horse kids. Alison’s turned into a stable rat. Honey’s making a project of her.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought that Honey Marcus was the maternal type,” said Maggie.

  “People surprise you,” said Pam.

  When Maggie left the dining room and checked her silenced phone, she found a voice mail from Hope, whom she’d been trying to reach for days.

  “Hey—just wanted you to know I’m still breathing. My phone died. The nice man at the Town Club is having it fixed or cloned or something. From here I’m going to Maine because, hold your hat, Buster and Brianna are getting married on Saturday! Damn, I wish you’d pick up. Okay, I’ll call you when I can.” And she signed off.

  Maggie immediately went to one of the phone booths outside the dining hall where you could either use a landline or make a call from your mobile in private. The woman on the desk at the Town Club said, “I think she’s checked out, Mrs. Detweiler, hold on a minute.” After an interval, the woman returned to say, “She checked out, but her luggage is in the cloakroom. When she comes back we can give her a message.” Maggie left word that Hope should keep calling until she reached her, that it was important.

  Hope meanwhile was at the New York Society Library. Without her phone, she needed to use her computer to pick up e-mail, and the library offered much nicer places to sit than her tiny bedroom at the club. Computer use was naturally not allowed in the club’s public rooms at any time. Hope was grateful that she had the
laptop with her at all; she had almost left it in Boston this trip, she’d gotten so good at typing on her phone with her thumbs. But there it was in the hold-everything chicken bag, and at the last minute, she’d slung it over her shoulder.

  She’d settled herself in the Hornblower Room on the fifth floor, where computers were allowed, as long as they didn’t make any noises. Around her, library members were beavering away at their novels or memoirs or histories of Malta. She loved the atmosphere and was a paying member on principle, since it was a cultural jewel of the city, though she’d rarely used it when she lived in New York because she really wasn’t that kind of reader. But now, here she was, and she wondered what she’d done with her computer glasses; she rooted through her purse and then the clever pockets of the chicken bag. No glasses. She did find a favorite pen she’d been looking for, and then the thumb drive that held her checkbook program backup, which would be fatal to lose. And another thumb drive. She took it out and studied it. She’d never bought that brand, that she could remember. What the hell was it? What was it doing in her purse? Then she discovered that her computer glasses were on top of her head, holding her hair out of her eyes, although she had no memory of putting them there. It was disconcerting bordering on scary how many habitual behaviors these days seemed to bypass the conscious mind altogether. No wonder people in their sunset years seemed to spend half their waking hours looking for things.

  She popped the mystery thumb drive into a USB port and opened its directory. The folders were: London, Paris, Florence, Madrid, Seville, Toledo, NYC, BMFA. This definitely wasn’t hers, but whose was it? She opened London. It seemed to be someone’s backup of a picture roll. She clicked an image: a painting of a man in a loincloth, his hands tied together and roped to a tree, with a little blue angel-like figure gazing at him. Everyone looking miserable. Then a picture of an old woman and a younger one, the younger one also looking miserable, and on the table before her a bowl of dead fish and another of eggs. The fishes were pretty terrific. Then a lugubrious portrait of, unmistakably, Philip IV of Spain, with his big jaw and his head shaped like a shoe box, and she knew. Velázquez. This had been on Florence Meagher’s desk. She had just picked it up when Ray caught her and Maggie snooping. She must have dropped it into the chicken bag when they fled. That she had no memory of it proved less than nothing.