by Joan Hess
Her smile withered. “As I said, he’s a very busy man.”
“Yes, you did say that.” I sat down and opened a copy of Architectural Digest to photos of a modern atrocity, with a massive vaulted ceiling, exposed beams, and glass walls. There were no bookcases to distort the geometry. The expanse of hardwood flooring reminded me of a basketball court. I did not look up as the receptionist stood up and went down a hall. I turned to an ad for glossy black leather furniture on a pure white carpet. It would remain so only if the occupants had no feet. Peter and Caron invariably left a trail of grime when they came home. I was picturing Peter in a peculiar cup-shaped chair when the receptionist returned.
“Mr. Delmond will see you now,” she said with icy disapproval.
I replaced the magazine and followed her to Danny’s office. His diploma and contractor’s license hung on the wall, along with photos of himself with golfers, politicians, obscure celebrities, and dead animals. A table was cluttered with blueprints and site maps. The room reeked of cigar smoke and masculine odors.
“Ms. Malloy,” he said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Please don’t bother to sit down, because this will be brief. Stop meddling in my business. You may have menopausal notions that I am involved in the deaths at Hollow Valley, but I am not. Furthermore, stay away from my acquaintances.”
I sat down. “Nanette is a nice girl, and she’ll make a radiant bride. Have you set the date? For appearances’ sake, you might wait until after Angela’s funeral. You don’t want to offend your friends at the country club.” It was not wise of him to irritate me so early in the game. If “menopausal notions” was the best he could do, he might as well be the fish in the barrel.
“You’re a real pain in the ass, Ms. Malloy. How can I convince you that I had nothing to do with Angela’s death?”
“I’m not sure you can,” I said bluntly. “You had motive, means, and opportunity. That’s all it takes. You might be able to blame some of it on your accomplice, but you’ll bear the brunt of it.”
His face contorted in peculiar ways as he tried to control his temper. He gripped his coffee mug with such ferocity that I waited to see if it shattered. I was sorry that I didn’t have a cell phone that could make a video. He glared at me from beneath his lowered brow. “Nanette told me that you questioned her about the weekend. I canceled our plans at the last moment because I wanted to spend some time with another woman. She is married. I will not give you her name so that you can pester her, too. I hope that satisfies you. As for a development at Hollow Valley, I did approach Charles Finnelly after a chamber meeting. He told me that the idea was preposterous. I redid my budget and went to his house with a rough draft of the development and a high offer. He turned me down again. When I got Angela’s e-mail about Terry Kennedy, I admit that I was annoyed that she was even out there, but I had no motive to kill her, Ms. Malloy. The deal was already in the crapper unless Finnelly had an epiphany.”
“Will he confirm this?”
He picked up the telephone receiver. “Want to call him and ask?”
“Maybe you’re planning to kill him next.”
He sneered. “Yeah, and then all the other family members, one by one. The police might not notice, but the heirs would be a tad suspicious. Then I’d have to kill them, too, and the next generation and the next generation. I do not intend to pursue the project into my eighties. I’ve made a bid on a forty-acre parcel on the other side of Farberville. Interested in a two-acre lot?”
“Why should I believe you? You lied to the police.”
He would have thrown his hands in the air had they not been attached. “At this point I doubt I could convince you that I’m not Islamist with a bomb factory in the basement.” He stood up. “Let me show you the drafting room.”
We went to the next room. Roles of long paper poked out of bins. The fluorescent lights made me wince. Plats and survey maps were taped to the walls. The large drafting table dominated the space. A man with bushy eyebrows looked up as we came in. “Yeah?”
“Brad, Ms. Malloy has a deep interest in our business. Please show her the plans for Clover Creek. She’s looking to build a new house.” Danny poked me in the back. “Don’t be shy. You have your choice of lots. I think you’ll like the ones at the back. Wooded, and private.”
I looked at the plat, with its streets, utilities easements, and neatly delineated lots. Writing in the corner declared it to be Clover Creek Planned Unit Development. “What about the Hollow Valley Development?” I asked Brad.
He put his fingertips on his forehead. “Jeez, I don’t know where that stuff is. You can look in the storage closet. I can’t promise we saved anything, though.”
Danny gave me a patently fake smile. “Unless you want to do some digging, you’re out of luck. Shall we return to my office?”
I desperately tried to come up with a theory to explain away Danny’s account. Unless his employee was lying, he had given up his plan involving Hollow Valley. People did murder their spouses in the middle of hostile divorces, but usually when millions of dollars were at stake. From the size of Delmond Enterprises Inc., I could tell that any financial settlement would not make the front page of the Wall Street Journal. When we sat down in his office, I said, “Did you know Winston Martinson and Terry Kennedy?”
“I knew who they were. Kennedy didn’t have a bat’s chance of winning the lawsuit. There’s not a judge in this town who would rule in favor of a faggot. His claim to the property was a bunch of baloney. Charles is the one who killed the project—not Kennedy, not Angela. I’ve never met any of the others.”
I was beginning to deflate, but I wasn’t going to display a wisp of doubt. “I will take this under consideration before I speak to Lieutenant Jorgeson. However, I insist on knowing the name of the woman who spent the weekend at your lake house.”
Danny shuffled papers on his desk for a minute. “If I tell you, you have to swear not to repeat it to anyone. If you ask her, she’ll deny it. Our reputations in this town will be destroyed if it gets out. I’ll go broke in six months.”
This woke me up. “I promise that I won’t tell anyone unless it’s relevant to the crime.”
“Susie Bartleby,” he said without looking at me.
“The real estate broker’s wife?”
“We met at an office party. Things took off from there. If Bartleby finds out, he’ll come after me like a bulldozer. She told him that she was visiting her college roommate.”
It wasn’t germane, but it was interesting. Since he’d withdrawn his fangs, I moved in. “I think Angela was having an affair. Do you have any idea who he might be?”
He wasn’t overwhelmed by my observation. “Good for her. She was going to need someone when the plastic surgeons admitted defeat.” He tapped a pen on his desk while he thought. “I haven’t heard any gossip, so I don’t think it was anyone in our social circle. She didn’t have time to go out of town; she was at her damned lawyer’s office almost daily. I can’t help you, Ms. Malloy. Please show yourself out.”
I did so. The town square had extensive flower beds, fountains, and benches for weary shoppers. I bought a cup of iced tea and sat in the shade. There had been one hitch in my brilliant theory, one that I’d chosen to overlook. Angela had e-mailed Danny the night before she disappeared. She hadn’t told him that she was showing the house the next day. Fate was not so twisted that he’d called her at the house and arranged for his accomplice to be outside at the pertinent moment. What could he have said that would send her to her car without telling me? A bomb threat would have propelled her out the French doors to alert me, surely. Buyers are worth their weight in commissions.
The tea was watery by the time I faced the possibility that I was mistaken about Danny Delmond. He was vain and overly impressed with himself. Angela’s harsher sentiments might well be true. What he wasn’t, I thought glumly, was intelligent enough to formulate a complex plan in a limited time. This made for a substantial setback in my determination to s
olve the case before my adorable husband arrived home. Jorgeson smoked cigars (over Ms. Jorgeson’s protests), but Peter wouldn’t be bringing him a box of them from Cuba, Missouri.
Dejected, I went to the Book Depot to make sure that Caron was doing my version of community service. The clerk was fine-tuning the window display when I arrived. Although he’d done a superb job, I felt obliged to suggest a few minute adjustments so that I wasn’t totally extraneous. I found Caron seated behind my desk, reading a magazine. “Fancy seeing you here,” she said. “Everything was already dusted, swept, cleaned, or alphabetized. I offered to help with the window display, but the guy said that he preferred to do it himself. He wouldn’t even let me sort the mail. How long do I have to stay here, Mother? Joel wants me to go over to his house and play a new video game. We’re going to a movie later.” She sucked in her cheeks and gave me a puckered look. I couldn’t tell if she was going for Oliver Twist or Beth March.
“We can discuss a reduction in your sentence if you tell me everything that took place after you went to search for Jordan. No evasions or omissions.”
“I thought that that Delmond guy did it. Jordan doesn’t even know who he is.”
“Get out of my chair and start talking,” I said.
She did as ordered, and after I’d taken my place behind the desk, she said, “Jordan was at the graveyard, ripping up weeds and throwing rocks at the squirrels. She was upset and majorly pissed at her aunt, Nattie, and you. She has an amazing vocabulary of obscenities. When she shut up, I told her why we were there. That got her all weepy, which was worse. I promised her that Inez and I would figure out something so she didn’t have to sleep there. We were headed for my car when she chickened out and said she’d get in even more trouble if she left. She was afraid that you’d find out that she was at Inez’s house and take her back to Hollow Valley.”
That was a supposition that I was unable to deny. “Continue,” I said coolly.
“So we went to the house to come up with another plan. When no one had any suggestions, we decided to stay there. We didn’t damage the place or anything. I’ll pay for the stupid quiche out of my allowance.”
“Tell me everything she said about Hollow Valley.”
Caron rolled her eyes. “She carried on for hours about how mean they were and how badly they treated her. I expected her to claim that she was chained in the basement every night after she’d had her bread and water. You cannot believe how melodramatic a fourteen-year-old can be.”
“Actually, I can,” I said. “Try to be more specific, Caron. What was her problem with Ethan, for instance?”
“He didn’t exactly do anything to her except make her work. No matter what she did, he’d tell her it wasn’t good enough. He was nice about it, but he’d always tell her that she hadn’t finished doing whatever and he didn’t have time to supervise her. He’d sigh and try to lay a guilt trip on her. It’s not like she applied for the job. Honestly, who would?”
“People who need to earn a living. Uncle Charles makes everybody miserable, and Aunt Margaret Louise isn’t going to get top security clearance in this lifetime, but what about Nattie?”
“She’s the only one who makes an effort to sympathize,” Caron said, beginning to relish center stage. “Jordan said that Nattie listens to her, but then all she does is bake cookies or cinnamon rolls. Pandora Butterfly is a mental case. She doesn’t listen to anybody except the voices in her head. That is one seriously stupid name, by the way. Jordan’s furious at her because she stole the dried pot plants.”
“That leaves Aunt Felicia,” I said. “What’s Jordan’s opinion of her?”
Caron paused. “That she’s as mean and bigoted as Uncle Charles but stays in his shadow. Anyone who’d marry that awful man has to have a bunch of screws loose.”
That covered the family in residence. Jordan wasn’t a neutral observer; she saw them as her enemies. They were probably as tired of her as she was of them. She’d pushed the boundaries with me; she’d tried to breach theirs at every opportunity. There was one Hollow who’d had no boundaries. “Did she go to the graveyard because she was so distressed about Moses’s death?”
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘distressed.’ Nobody told her that he was sick. He promised to show her a cave where he found arrowheads, but when she wanted to go upstairs to make plans, Nattie wouldn’t let her. The next thing she knows, her Aunt Margaret Louise goes upstairs to take him a cup of tea and discovers that he’s dead. Jordan was so freaked out that she ran out of the house to the graveyard. I think she kind of loved him, and didn’t get to say good-bye.”
“That’s hard,” I murmured. I’d let her down, too. “Did she tell you about her unsuccessful attempt to run away?”
“It was a hoot,” Caron said with a giggle. “She was stuck in the back of the truck for hours and hours. She took a big bottle of water, so after jouncing for all that time, she absolutely had to pee. When the driver stopped to unload the plants, she tried to slither out while his back was turned. She said it was like she crawled out of a gopher hole. The driver was so startled that she almost got away. He caught her and let her use the ladies’ room and then made her sit in the cab all the way back. He was so mad that he wouldn’t even buy her a hamburger. She had to use all her money to buy fries. He had the radio tuned to a country music station and sang all the way back.”
“I watched the men load trucks. I don’t see how she could have been in the truck without being spotted.”
Caron held out her arms and wiggled her fingers.
“Get started on scrubbing the lavatory,” I said crossly. “One more thing before you’re overcome with self-pity. Is Jordan friendly with any of the workmen?”
“The men made lewd remarks. The women, all Hispanic, called her a puta. Do you know what that means?”
“I can guess. Once you’ve finished with the lavatory, you can leave. I expect you home at a reasonable hour.”
“When’s Peter getting home?”
“Tonight, I hope.” I took out my cell phone, which was unresponsive. “I’d better go home and find out if he’s left a message. Scrub your heart out, dear. When you get out of college and discover that there are no pain-free jobs, you can apply to be a janitor. You’ll have experience.”
“You are so Not Funny.”
* * *
I drove to my duplex, fetched the mail, and then regarded the telephone warily. The red button was flashing. There were many people who might have called. I told myself that I could fast-forward through the tirades and hit the button. The first was from Peter. The sound of his voice reminded me of how much I missed him. When he came through the door, my second order of business would be to persuade him to extricate himself from the ATF task force. The message was heartening; he expected to be in Farberville by eight o’clock. The second message was from Nattie, thanking me for sending Jordan home. The third message was from Loretta, a.k.a. Esther, asking me to come to her house.
It seemed like a plan. I changed back into jeans and a T-shirt, feeling like a mannequin in a department store. Traffic was minimal as I drove past the campus and up the hill. I pondered what to tell her about her mother. The scene from the previous afternoon had verged on grotesque. All I could do was ease into it and watch her carefully. I’d promised Felicia that I would pass on her message. Loretta would have to deal with it as she chose. As I parked, I remembered that she’d called me. Earlier she’d said that she might have something to tell me concerning Winston. I had an inkling of what it might be.
Loretta met me at the door. “Come on in. Let’s sit in the kitchen if that’s okay. It’s the only room I’ve ever felt safe in, no matter where I was living. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Maybe because it’s the only room your father never entered,” I said as we sat down.
She thought about it for several minutes. “That may be true. He was very big on a woman’s place, and he didn’t mean just the kitchen. My mother’s place was also two steps behind him, with he
r mouth shut and her eyes downcast. There wasn’t much lively conversation when I was growing up.”
“I spoke to her yesterday,” I began cautiously and then described what happened, downplaying, but not omitting, the excess of wine. She listened without expression until I limped to the conclusion. I had no clue whether she was going to explode with anger or fall over laughing. “If I shouldn’t have told her about you, I apologize. I thought she deserved to know that you’re alive and well.”
Rather than overreact in either direction, she settled for a broad smile. “My mother, the closet drunk. I love it!” She raised her voice. “Nicole, are you busy? You’ve got to hear this!”
“I’m working on my closing statement for court in the morning,” a voice called back. “You don’t want some unlucky guy to be deported, do you?”
Loretta was still smiling as she said to me, “Do you know why I chose the name Loretta? It’s not because I’m a fan of country music. I took it from the Litany of Loreto, which celebrates the great queens of the Bible, including Esther. It took me a long time to select it. I don’t know what I’d have done if my name was Tiffany.”
“What do you want me to tell your mother?” I asked gently.
She bit her lip. “I need to think about it. I don’t want her to get in trouble with my father. Her life already sucks.”
“If you decide to meet her, let me know and I’ll get the information to her. I’m sorry to change the subject, but you wanted to talk to me about something.”
“Oh, right. I completely forgot,” Loretta said. “I suppose I’m in shock. Yes, I want to tell you what Winston said after he and Terry had been living in Hollow Valley for a few months. He was extremely sensitive to nuances in people’s behavior. They pretended to welcome him home, but he knew that was hogwash. What bothered him was that they seemed to be afraid of him. One night when we were well into margaritas, he dragged me outside and warned me to stay away from them. He said it was because both of us are direct descendants, but he wouldn’t elaborate. I told him that I would never claim my inheritance. As far as I was concerned, my parents were already dead to me, and the last thing I’d ever do was live in Hollow Valley.”