Twanged

by Carol Higgins Clark

  “I couldn’t say,” Brigid replied.

  “Something tells me they will,” Regan said. “Especially since they’re the ones who lifted you out of the water.”

  “Such strength.” Louisa sighed. “And that girl who pounded on my back?”

  “Pammy,” Brigid said.

  “I must write her a thank-you note. Her boyfriend is Kieran, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” Brigid said quickly.

  “He’s so good-looking! And the other two boys are adorable. Where are they today?”

  “Golfing,” Brigid answered.

  “Golf golf golf. All the men love golf. And I understand more women are out on the links these days. . . .”

  “It’s a great place to meet men,” Kit said. “Although I’m afraid to get out there until I am sure I can swing without missing the ball.”

  Nora called from the kitchen, where she was cutting up fruit for the salad, “I keep telling Regan and Kit they should go to golf camp.”

  Regan laughed. “You see, Louisa, my mother keeps giving us suggestions on where to meet men.”

  “My mother wanted me to go on a field trip to Lourdes,” Kit said. “It’s pretty bad when your own mother thinks it’s going to take a miracle for you to get into a relationship.”

  Louisa laughed. “Nora!” she cried, and then said, “Oh, my head.” She readjusted the washcloth. “These girls will meet someone when they least expect it! Lambie and I met on a blind date set up by his aunt Phyllis and my aunt Gretchen. To think I didn’t want to go! Kit, what about the men in your house? That Garrett seemed like he could be interesting. I was discussing the stock market with him.”

  “That’s all he ever wants to discuss,” Kit said. “What to do with your extra money, of which I have none.”

  “Pity. Oh well, I’m sure you’ll meet all sorts this summer, Kit.”

  “I think we already have,” Regan said. “Louisa,” she began hesitantly, “now that you feel a little better, I just thought I’d ask. When you went out to the pool and leaned over, how is it that you hit the diving board?”

  “I don’t know. It’s the oddest thing, Regan. I must admit I was experiencing the whirlies when I thought I saw something at the bottom of the pool. I went to the edge, leaned over, and then it was almost as if I felt jostled. But that’s silly, isn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily,” Regan replied. Not necessarily at all, she thought.

  “I vaguely remember hitting the diving board, and that was that.”

  “Well,” Regan said. “Just make sure to take it easy today.”

  “Oh, Regan, I couldn’t possibly! After we partake of your father’s wonderful brunch . . .” Louisa said, turning to look in the direction of the kitchen.

  Luke, wearing a chef’s apron Regan had given him, lifted his whisk and waved.

  “. . . I have research to do. I’ll plug in my laptop and hook up to the Internet.”

  Regan set her cup down on the coffee table. “It might be interesting to see what you can find about Brigid on there.”

  Brigid waved her hand and laughed. “I hear they’ve reprinted a few newspaper articles about me. There are also some country music chat rooms where people talk about everything going on in the business.”

  “I’ll drop in on them,” Louisa declared. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “Only if it’s good.” Brigid chuckled.

  “I’m sure it’s all good,” Louisa pronounced. “You’re a darling. Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No,” Brigid said.

  “You’ve got plenty of time, plenty of time,” Louisa chirped. “Bettina invited me to the session with Peace Man this afternoon at the Chappy Compound. I wouldn’t miss that for the world. Are you all going?”

  “Yes,” Regan said. “Bettina was dying to have Brigid attend.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll be there taking notes on Peace Man’s message for my article.”

  “Soup’s on,” Luke called as he carried a steaming tray of pancakes to the dining room.

  “I’ll be right back,” Regan said. She hurried down the hall to the bathroom. Louisa’s now-famous red-and-white caftan drooped from a hanger over the tub, looking as tired and forlorn as the last remaining item on a sale rack. It was in imminent peril of collapsing into a heap.

  Regan stared at the outfit that could have been Louisa’s last, then reached over to straighten it. After she evened the shoulders on the hanger, her fingers ran down the sides of the caftan, as she skimmed the pattern with her eyes. A shiny white mark caught her attention, a mark that was not in harmony with the white swirls in the fabric. It was circular. Regan touched it; it felt sticky. Turning over her hand, she saw that white paint was now visible on her fingers.

  Her eyes flew back to the garment. It was stained on the back with white paint. She’d just been talking about white paint with Duke this morning. The stain was small, about the circumference of the end of the skimmer he’d used to clean the pool. Regan’s heart beat a little faster. She knew the whole thing didn’t sit right with her. Was it possible—no, probable—that someone had pushed Louisa with the sticky skimmer?

  But why?

  There was absolutely no way Louisa could have brushed into the skimmer so that the end of it would touch the small of her back. This is crazy, Regan thought. If the end of the skimmer left this paint stain, then someone deliberately held it against her.

  “It was almost as if I felt jostled,” Louisa had said not more than five minutes ago.

  Regan could visualize a slightly tipsy Louisa bending over the pool to see the musical note .. . someone coming up behind her holding the skimmer . . . pushing her with it.

  What should I do? Regan wondered. She had to get back to the table. I can’t say anything to Louisa. Or to anybody, really.

  She needed to think this through, to figure out who it could be. Who would want to kill Louisa? She hadn’t known anyone at the party beforehand. All she had done was to go around telling everyone there she was writing an article on the Hamptons. Did someone at the party want to put a stop to that? Or could it have been someone coming up from the beach? Access was easy enough.

  Or was that push meant for Brigid?

  Oh brother, Regan thought. Could this in any way be tied to the letter Brigid had received? Or the fiddle?

  There’s not much I can do about the paint stain on the back of the caftan. I can’t exactly question the people at the party.

  But I will keep my eye out. For the safety of both Louisa and Brigid.

  She hurried back to the table, not really feeling hungry anymore.

  14

  At last!” Chappy cried as Duke, carrying a tray of coffee, juice, and donuts, entered Chappy’s study. On Sunday mornings Duke would run out to Dunkin’ Donuts and buy their favorites, and then they’d sit and discuss the projects at hand. It was a tradition they both enjoyed.

  At this time Bettina was usually with her personal trainer in the exercise room, doing her ninety-ninth sit-up. She’d tried to get Chappy involved, but he had zero interest. “Generations of Tinkas lived to ripe old ages without ever having set foot in a gym,” he always told her. “I’m not about to break a winning streak.”

  Right now he bit into a chocolate donut.

  Duke picked up a cruller and began to munch. Usually they didn’t talk until one full donut each was down their respective hatches.

  “Thank God, our dinner guest didn’t croak,” Chappy finally said as he patted his mouth with a paper napkin.

  “Oh man, that would have been bad,” Duke agreed. He took a sip from his juice carton. “She really got bombed.”

  “Those drinks you made were too strong!” Chappy remarked as he turned and stared out the window at the sweeping view of the Atlantic. He always enjoyed going for a swim, his private beach making him feel as if he owned the ocean. A smile lit his face and his eyes shone as he voiced his inner thoughts. “The Hamptons News should print its story tomorrow. I’m sure it w
ill be wonderful coverage of the party with Brigid O’Neill and Nora Regan Reilly enjoying a Saturday-night dinner at the Chappy Compound.”

  Duke, his lower lip protruding, looked at his boss with a puzzled expression. “But they were taking pictures of that lady spitting out water. What if they print those?”

  “She lived, you idiot!” Chappy threw down his flimsy napkin. “All’s well that ends well! That’s all that counts. Yes, indeed. Tomorrow all of the Hamptons will be reading about the upcoming Chappy’s Theatre by the Sea. It’s good to start beating the drums, as they say, and let everyone know that, like it or not”—he rapped his knuckles on the desk as he pronounced each word—”Chaplain Wickham Tinka is a player in this town.”

  “Yeah.”

  Chappy sighed. “Did you skim the pool?”

  Duke nodded. “Regan Reilly was out there this morning. I forgot to tell you,” he said as he licked his finger. “Last night I heard she was a private detective.”

  “WHAT?” Chappy exploded. His voice became a harsh whisper. “A private detective?”

  “Uh-huh,” Duke said. “Angela told me.”

  “That one!” Chappy rolled his eyes.

  “She’s going to hear my lines for me. I told you I decided to memorize Shakespeare this summer.”

  God help us, Chappy thought. “This isn’t the time to worry about your career. Our focus is the fiddle, and then you might have a chance at an acting career. How does Angela know that Regan Reilly is a private detective?”

  “She said she read it in an article about Regan’s mother, the writer.”

  “Just what I need!” Chappy cried. “I hope she doesn’t get in the way when we switch the fiddles. It’s not fair!”

  Duke poured him another cup of coffee.

  Chappy added two spoonfuls of sugar and stirred briskly. “My nerves! My nerves! Until we get that fiddle, I’m going to be a wreck. Let’s see . . .” He paused, took a sip, and put down his coffee cup. “You know what today is, don’t you?”

  “Sunday.”

  “No, stupid. It’s the first day we can go take a look at the fiddle by ourselves.”

  “Are we going in the tunnel?”

  “Naturally. How else? We can’t exactly barge in the front door. It’ll also be a dry run for Plan A of swiping the fiddle.”

  “If Plan A is sneaking into the guest house through the basement, then what’s Plan B?”

  Chappy rubbed his hands together. “I’ve got this worked out. Brigid told me that the afternoon of the festival she wants to rest up and then get over there early. They’re leaving for good in that bloody bus right after the concert, so we have to get it before she leaves. I’ll ask her to come and play her fiddle one last time in the house here before the concert. That’s if we haven’t gotten it already. Then we drive her over there in style in the Rolls-Royce. We put the fiddle in the trunk, and while I talk to her in the car you switch them.”

  “That’s a lot of pressure.”

  “Oh, be quiet. After our dry run this morning with the tunnel, we’ll drop in on our friend the fiddle-maker.”

  “He doesn’t want to be bothered.”

  “I don’t care! We’ve got to prod him along.”

  “But he said he doesn’t want—”

  “TOO BAD ABOUT HIM!” Chappy paused and tried to calm himself. He pulled a Polaroid camera out of his desk drawer. “I thought we’d take a few pictures of the fiddle to give to our friend the fiddle-maker. It’s a good excuse for stopping by. Now . . . you said they all went out?”

  Duke swallowed the last of the carton of papaya juice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yeah. The guys and Pammy went out of here this morning with their golf clubs. When I was coming back in just now, Brigid and Regan and Kit were pulling out. They were going to Regan’s parents’ house for brunch.”

  Chappy made a face. “We weren’t invited?”

  “Guess not.”

  “That’s gratitude for you.”

  Duke crushed the carton in his hand. “Let’s get our helmets.”

  Chappy turned around in his chair and rapped on the fake bookcase. It swiveled open, revealing a shelf holding two orange miner’s helmets with special headlights attached. Chappy kicked his heels with glee and got up. Donning their special headgear they disappeared behind the bookcase and down the secret stairs into the bowels of Chappy Castle.

  As the musty damp smell filled their nostrils, Chappy grew more and more excited. The sight of the gray walls with cobwebs in the corners and big dark pipes hanging from the ceiling contributed to the feeling of forbidden territory.

  They went down a hall, past the wine cellar, past Chappy’s baby buggy and all the other requisite junk kept in basements, and turned right. They stopped at a little dark corner that was now lit up by their helmets.

  Chappy turned to Duke. “Do the honors.”

  Duke bent down and pulled away a stone near the ground, behind which was a door handle. Grabbing it, he pulled, and all the stones above moved forward in unison, revealing a secret room. The two of them hunched over and, once inside, shut the door behind them.

  “Ah yes,” Chappy said as he pulled the string to light the lone bulb hanging from the ceiling. “The Tinka Men’s Lounge, a room created during the strain of Prohibition. Grandpa Tinka founded this little speakeasy so his buddies could come over for a few belts without the worry of being busted. Grandpa was a crafty bootlegger who would send his speedboat out to Rum Row, three miles offshore, just outside federal jurisdiction, where they’d stock up on supplies of booze from the boats that came up from the Islands. They’d rush their quarry back to shore, ever on the lookout for gangsters and the Coast Guard. But Grandpa had built his boat to be faster than the Coast Guard’s. Oh yes,” Chappy reminisced with a tear in his eye, “I’ll never forget the first time my father brought me down here. I was thirteen. . .”

  Behind him, Duke rolled his eyes. He’d heard this story every time they had come down here for the past ten years.

  “Long after Prohibition,” Chappy continued, “this was a special room for the men in the Tinka family. It was our escape. Grandpa and Papa and I would come down here and sit and talk, and they’d smoke their cigars. That’s why, when I leveled the house, I made sure the foundation stayed the same. I wanted to keep this room!” He sat in a thronelike chair and looked around smiling. Boxes and boxes of junk were all over the floor. Girlie magazines dating back to Grandpa’s days were stacked in the corner. The fiddle Duke had stolen from Malachy was propped up in the corner. “To think that this whole place survived the dreadful hurricane of 1938. I love it here!”

  What a pit, Duke thought. But he knew to keep his mouth shut when it came to this historic room. He sat in the only other chair and crossed his legs. I should be doing summer stock right now, he thought.

  Once seated, they usually didn’t know what to do with themselves. They never even stayed very long. Just knowing it was there made Chappy happy. Today they had a mission, but Chappy always liked to sit for a few moments and pay homage to his rumrunning Grandpa.

  They sat there listening to the faraway sounds of activity upstairs.

  Finally Chappy stood. “Onward and upward.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  Through another secret door they went, this one opening onto the tunnel that led straight to the basement of the guest house. This tunnel was also where the booze was stored during the fourteen years of Prohibition, starting in 1920. Because Prohibition was so flagrantly violated, a popular song of the day had been “Everybody Wants a Key to My Cellar.” That was certainly true in Grandpa Tinka’s case. He’d had this long tunnel built to use not only for storing the bottles and bottles of contraband he always managed to procure, but also as a secret passageway for his drinking buddies to get to the speakeasy from the guest house. He never wanted them coming through the main house. Not only was he afraid of the main house being watched more carefully by the police, but he didn’t want his wife, Agneta, hav
ing to cope with anyone stumbling out at the end of the night.

  The tunnel was dark and damp. It smelled earthy and occasionally a bug or little animals would make Chappy scream. Now he and Duke moved, single file, through the subterranean passageway that opened onto the corner of the basement beneath Brigid’s guest house. Another secret door had been built so as not to be noticed by the casual observer who happened to be in that basement.

  No use letting people know about the tunnel and that Grandpa Tinka had been an outlaw, Chappy often thought. Chappy’s mother had preferred that no mention of his colorful history be made in polite society.

  The door upstairs in the guest house that led to the basement had no handle, per Chappy’s design. It could be opened only from the other side by someone who was on the basement steps. Since no guest would have any reason to go to the basement, Chappy had in effect sealed it off.

  “Well, we’re here,” Duke said, pushing his hair back as they opened the door and stepped out onto the cement floor.

  “Shhhh,” Chappy commanded.

  “But nobody’s home.”

  “You never know!” Chappy said sharply.

  Silently they crept up the steps and stopped at the door to listen. They could hear nothing but the sounds of the surf outside and birds cawing as they flew overhead.

  “You’ve got the camera?” Chappy asked.

  Duke nodded solemnly.

  His whole body trembling, Chappy slowly opened the door and looked around. No one was there. A breeze was blowing through the window. Papers were on the table. The sun was streaming in and the whole house was quiet. He turned to Duke. “Come on.”

  Leaving the door wide open behind them so as not to be locked in, they both ran through the downstairs room and bumbled up the staircase to Brigid’s room. The door was closed. Chappy stopped and listened and then opened it. Brigid’s brush and creams and perfume were arranged neatly on the dresser. Her suitcases were stacked in the corner. The bed was made.

  “What a good guest,” Chappy mumbled as he dove to the floor and checked under the bed. “Aha!” he cried. “Aha!”

  He pulled out the fiddle case and lifted it onto the bed. “This case is a little better than the other,” he said to the hovering Duke. When he opened it, his knees almost buckled.