The Woman Who Fell From Grace

by David Handler

  “What is your name, boy?” she whispered, her heart pounding.

  “Andrew, m’lady.”

  “Mine is Evangeline, Andrew. I wish for you to address me by it. For I am of Virginia, not England. And I am most certainly nota lady.”

  I took a lunch break a little before one. Pam was busy at the big round kitchen table reorganizing the household accounts, a plate of biscuits and a cup of tea at her elbow. Charlotte was on the phone in her office with a caterer.

  “Getting settled in, Pam?” I asked.

  “Quite nicely, dear boy,” she replied cheerily. “It appears Fern had a filing system all her own. I have yet to fathom it, but once I have, I trust the operation will begin to make some form of sense. Fortunately, Charlotte is helping me prepare for the VADD Ball.” Pam glanced over her shoulder at Charlotte’s office, lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Are she and Richard … ?”

  “He wants to, she’s not so sure.”

  “Well, I shall help make the poor dear sure,” Pam declared. “The man’s a complete fraud.”

  “Oh?”

  “Indeed. I discerned the faintest trace of commoner in his accent yesterday — not something one of you Yanks could detect. First thing this morning I rang up someone back home who knows of such matters. She assured me there is no title such as Richard described to you. No Kenneth Lonsdale, ill or otherwise. A fabrication, all of it. Oh, the man may be a second son. But certainly not one who is about to come into any family money in the near future.”

  “So that explains it,” I mused aloud.

  “Explains what, dear boy?”

  “The snide little way the brothers have of calling him ‘Lord’ Lonsdale. It’s all a pretension of his, and they know it. And like to rub it in.

  Pamela sniffed. “I shall take it upon myself to inform Charlotte. I cannot allow her to get involved. She’ll do herself no good. He’s a miserable sort.” She reached for a biscuit and nibbled on it. “Of course, what man wouldn’t be — married to Mavis.”

  “What do you make of her?”

  “She’s a lonely woman,” Pam replied. “I feel somewhat sorry for her, actually. But I can afford that luxury — I am not related to her. Speaking of which, her brother Frederick happens to owe everyone in town money.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve been ordering supplies for the ball. Each merchant has asked me who’d be signing the checks — because if it were Frederick, they said that they would have to have cash. They were quite apologetic about it, but also quite firm.”

  “Hmm. Interesting. Good work, Pam.”

  I heard footsteps on the stairs. Mercy came rushing in toting a knapsack full of books. She wore a plaid wool jumper over a pink cotton turtleneck, knee socks, and penny loafers. Her hair was in a ponytail. She looked good. Good and twelve.

  She flushed slightly when she saw me there. “Oh, great, you’re here,” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I was going to have Pam give this to you.” She handed me a manila envelope. “The historical details you wanted.”

  “Terrific. Thanks.”

  She flashed me a big smile. “Anything else you need just let me know — gotta run — I’m late for class — bye.” She dashed out.

  Pam raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Something?” I asked.

  “The girl gets positively saucer-eyed around you,” she observed.

  “I do have that effect on some people.”

  “You wouldn’t be encouraging her just a bit, would you?”

  “Now why would I want to do that?”

  “Because she’s young and lovely, and you’re here and Merilee is in Connecticut.”

  “Makes perfect sense when you put it that way,” I admitted. “Except that she’s all but engaged to the redoubtable Polk LaFoon the Fourth, and I’m too nice a guy and he’s in a lot better shape than I am. How are you getting on with Gordie?”

  She frowned. “Not well. The child seems terrified of me, for some reason. Says next to nothing. All I’ve gotten out of him so far was something about the tooth fairy.”

  “And how generous he is?”

  She peered up at me, amused. “You aren’t becoming attached to him, are you?”

  “Me? No chance. No use for him. None.”

  She shook her head sadly. “The poor little thing has been through so much. I can’t help but feel this is not the ideal environment for him. He needs a home. He needs to feel he belongs. Here he seems to be somewhat in the way.” Pam sipped her tea. “Mavis has been asking for you. She’s read the pages you left her and wants to discuss them with you.”

  “Where is she?”

  “On patrol somewhere in the northern portion of the estate. You, dear boy, are to find her.”

  I found her pink dirt bike before I found her.

  It was lying in the brush alongside the dirt path that twisted through the woods out beyond the gazebo. The engine was running.

  Mavis was lying another thirty feet or so up the path, facedown. Or I should say, what was left of her face was down. She’d been thrown — headfirst into the trunk of a tree. The tree won. Not much of a contest, really. She hadn’t been wearing a helmet.

  It wasn’t a very civilized way to die. But I haven’t come upon one yet that is.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  POLK FOUR PULLED HIS car right out onto the lawn next to the trees. Two more sheriff’s cars and an emergency medical services van were right behind him. So was a local news radio crew, until one of Polk’s deputies chased them off.

  Richard and Charlotte had been home with Pam. Frederick and Edward arrived from their offices within minutes. They brought Mercy with them from school. All of them stood there on the lawn in silence, gray faced.

  Polk wouldn’t let them anywhere near Mavis. He didn’t want them to see her like that. He was polite, but firm. He handled it well, considering how upset he was himself.

  “I told her a million times to wear a helmet,” he said to me hoarsely, his blue eyes moist, as we stood over her body. “I told her it doesn’t matter how slow you’re going on these paths, you never know when you’ll run into a stump or a rock or a —”

  “Trip wire?”

  He shot me an angry look and squared his jaw. “You already know I don’t care for what you’ve got to say, Mr. Hoag. Right now is a particularly inappropriate time to —”

  “Take a look, Sheriff.”

  His face reddened. He looked dangerous. “Get the heck away from me!” he snapped. “I mean it. Get away or I’ll —”

  “Take a look. That’s all I ask. One look.”

  He hesitated. His shoulders relaxed a bit. Reluctantly he said, “Okay. One look.”

  I led him back up the path a ways to a slender, young redbud tree growing alongside it in the brush. A foot up from its base something had been wound tightly around its trunk, tight enough to cut through the bark, exposing the live green growth underneath.

  Polk crouched next to me and examined the tree. “The bike probably did this when she lost control. So what?”

  “The bike would have left a gash in one side of the tree, or broken it clean. It wouldn’t have damaged the bark all the way around like that.” I got to my feet. “Besides, there’s another one just like it over here.” I showed him the matching wound in a tree directly across the path. “A wire did this, Sheriff. A wire stretched across her path. It stopped the bike cold. She went flying. She was murdered — same way Fern was. They were both murdered. You know it and I know it.”

  Polk stared down at his shoes. He swallowed uneasily. The emergency people were lifting Mavis’s covered body onto a stretcher now. He glanced at them, motioned for me to follow him. We moved farther down the path to the rough old wooden gazebo where, fifty years ago, Alma Glaze had sat writing in her diary.

  He sat down heavily at the weathered pine table, removed his trooper’s hat, and smoothed his short blond hair, not that it needed smoothing. “I was going to come out and talk to you today,” he sa
id quietly. “Seems a couple of boys in a Ford pickup got themselves toasted on their way down Jack Mountain yesterday. Stevie Tucker and Tommy Ray Holton. I went to high school with both of them. Been in and out of trouble for as long as I can remember — breaking and entering, receiving stolen property, aggravated assault. They never did any serious time, but they were no great loss to the community either.” Polk cleared his throat. “A passerby believes he saw them a few minutes before it happened … being pursued by an antique red car.”

  “I prefer to think of it as a classic.”

  “They the two who roughed you up?”

  I nodded. “Someone hired them to try and get Alma’s diary that day. It’s worth a lot of money. Yesterday they were just trying to get me. They took out my windshield with an over-under shotgun.”

  “That checks. We found one near the truck. Who were they working for, Mr. Hoag? Who hired them?”

  “I don’t know, Sheriff. But I do know who can tell us.”

  “Who?”

  I tugged at my ear. “You won’t like it.”

  “I don’t like any of this,” he assured me quietly.

  “Your grandfather can. Polk Two knows.”

  Polk Four slumped and let out a weary sigh. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  A look of genuine anguish crossed his earnest, unlined face. “What is going on here, Mr. Hoag? What the devil is going on?”

  “I told you — a cover-up is what’s going on.”

  “I know you did,” he acknowledged. “And I didn’t listen to you. Too unimaginative. That’s what Mercy says I am — unimaginative. Christ, poor Mercy … ” He looked at me sharply. “I’m thinking that all of this has happened since you got here.”

  “I know. And I’m the one who found the bodies. I could have done in both of them, hid the trip wire, then yelled for help. I look good for it. Only why, Sheriff? I’ve no reason to want either of them dead.”

  “I was thinking that, too.” He scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “Publicity for your book?”

  “It doesn’t need it — not that badly. If you’re looking for likely candidates to do in Mavis, there are plenty. There’s Richard, who’s been wanting to run off with another woman. There’s the other woman, Charlotte, who also happened to blame Mavis for her father’s death. There’s Frederick and Edward, cut out of their mother’s estate, bitter, jealous. … It could have been any of them. They were all familiar with her patrol route. Only, why kill Fern, too? What’s the connection?”

  “Maybe there isn’t one,” Polk suggested.

  “I doubt that. Fern knew something. And so, it would appear, did Mavis. This whole business is about what got covered up fifty years ago, during the filming of the movie. I’m certain of it. I just can’t figure out how.”

  He gazed out at the woods for a moment. Then he turned back to me, his face softening. “I’m sorry, H-Hoagy. About not listening to you before. Maybe Mavis would still be alive if I had. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Nobody wants to believe that everyone they hold dear, everything they belong to, that all of it may have been built on something wrong.”

  “I know, Sheriff. And I know this is tough for you. You grew up believing that as long as you respected your elders and kept your nails clean and your shoes shined that good things would happen to you. And so far they have — you’ve been lucky. I’m sorry your luck has changed. Truly sorry.”

  “Whatever needs doing, I’ll do it,” he declared. “My personal considerations must be set aside.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Any ideas?”

  I had several things he could check out that I couldn’t. He said he’d get right on them. He was utterly determined now. He had set a goal for himself and he would not be knocked off course. This was, after all, a guy who made it through law school.

  “By the way, Sheriff, I’d also put Mercy under twenty-four-hour guard.”

  He frowned. “Mercy? Why?”

  “She’s twenty-one, isn’t she?”

  “Two months ago. I gave her a pearl necklace, belonged to my grandmother.”

  “Shenandoah is hers now. She’s sole heir. If this whole thing is about money, and it probably is, she now owns everything. That means … ”

  He nodded. “You’re right,” he said grimly.

  I didn’t have to tell him what it meant. I didn’t have to tell him that Mercy’s life was now in danger.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MAVIS GLAZE’S DEATH WAS front-page news across America. The television news crews stormed Staunton. So did Entertainment Tonight, Time and Newsweek, the major daily newspapers, USA Today and the tabloids. Within hours, reporters from all over were elbowing each other in the street for interviews with average townspersons. Barbara Walters landed an exclusive with Mavis’s hairdresser, who wept on the air. Geraldo dug up a psychic who had foreseen that Mavis would the just as her mother had — in a vehicular accident, alone, wearing blue. Maury Povich, not to be outdone, found a Hollywood spiritualist who was convinced that Alma Glaze was haunting Shenandoah — how else to account for two accidental deaths at the estate in recent days?

  Actually, that one made about as much sense as anything I had come up with so far.

  Polk Four didn’t breathe a word about the trip wire. Airing it in the press, the sheriff believed, would only turn Mavis’s death into a bigger circus — and make her killer a lot warier. Better, she reasoned, if he or she figured they’d gotten away with it. He kept the truth from the family, too, since it would only frighten them. And since the killer was very likely one of them. I was the only one who knew Mavis had been murdered. Not even his deputies knew. Not the pair posted at the Shenandoah front gate to keep out the press and the gawkers — tourist visitation was suspended until further notice. Not the one in the house, who was partly there to screen phone calls and mostly there to keep his eye on Mercy.

  Mercy didn’t leave the house for several days. None of the family did. They just sat in the peacock parlor, dazed. Richard drank brandy after brandy and twitched a lot. Frederick chain-smoked. Edward kept coughing and opening the window, and Frederick kept closing it. Mercy sat on the sofa with a box of Kleenex, sniffling. No one talked. It was kind of pathetic, the silence. They had held such bitter feelings toward Mavis, yet they seemed lost without her. She had defined their lives. Her will, her demands, had dictated how each of them functioned and interacted. Without her there they were like strangers, sitting around waiting for a bus. And a new master. I had a pretty good idea who that master would be, too, only he was reluctant. He wasn’t a family member. Not yet, anyway. But when it became obvious they needed him, Polk Four did step forward. It was he who made the funeral arrangements. Charlotte worked the phone. Pam kept the place running and meals on the table.

  Little Gordie made for kind of a sad footnote to the story. The kid had already lost his natural parents. Now he’d lost his adoptive mother, too. Strangely, he didn’t seem upset or hurt by it. I guess it was impossible to hurt him now. To him, this was just business as usual. And that was the saddest thing of all.

  There was much debate in the Staunton Daily News Leader over whether or not to cancel next week’s golden-anniversary festivities, the gala screening, the VADD costume ball. Naturally, the film studio was eager to capitalize on Mavis’s death. They weren’t alone. The Virginia tourism people had a lot riding on the anniversary, as did the town fathers of Staunton. Still, no one wanted to look too crass, so they left it up to the Glazes. Polk Four had to pull them together and make them decide. They decided the celebration would go on. Mavis, they felt, would have wanted it that way. Everyone was glad. I know I was. This meant Rex Ransom would still be coming to town. It also meant I’d actually have the opportunity to see Henry Kissinger in a powdered wig, red velvet knee breeches, and white silk stockings.

  The Major League Editor who was publishing Sweet Land kept calling me from New York, and I kept ducking her. I returned her fourth call. It would have been unprof
essional not to.

  “Exactly how far along are you?” she wondered anxiously. “Not that I’m trying to pressure you.”

  “Exactly two chapters into it,” I replied.

  “That’s all?”

  “I’ve only been here a few days,” I pointed out.

  “I know, I know. I just … I mean, we’re all over the front page right now. Do you need help, Hoagy?”

  “Generally.”

  “I mean, is there something I can do to help speed things up? Anything?”

  “Do you really want to help?”

  “Absolutely. You’re our top priority. Just name it.”

  “You could stop calling me.”

  “Stop calling you?”

  “Yes. Every minute I spend on the phone with you is a minute I’m not spending at the typewriter.”

  “You mean like right now?”

  “I mean like right now.”

  Click. She was gone. Smart lady. There’s even talk she’ll be getting her own imprint when she turns twenty-five.

  My involvement with Sweet Land was actually out in the open now. Sort of. They put out a bogus press release saying Mavis had completed most of the manuscript herself before her fatal accident, and that I was being brought in to do a light polish. Hey, if you’re looking for the truth, don’t read the newspapers. And if you’re looking for appreciation, become a licensed plumber — ghosting isn’t for you.

  I worked around the clock to the sounds of Garner and Gordie, who sat outside in the courtyard, tossing his ball against the wall for hours. I had no contact with the outside world, unless you count the telegram from Merilee: “I WANT YOU OUT OF THAT HORRIBLE PLACE RIGHT NOW, MISTER. STOP.” To which I replied: “CAN’T. HAVING TOO MUCH GOOD, CLEAN FUN.” Sadie was a frequent visitor, though unlike Lulu she kept climbing up on my desk and playing with the paper in my typewriter. I left my quarters only to eat and to take Lulu out for her midnight assignations with Bowser. Roy was keeping up his vigil by the wall. Mavis might be gone, but the precious Shenandoah peacocks were still in danger, or so he thought. If he thought. I had my doubts. Mostly, we caught him snoozing.