After a few minutes, I heard three quick taps on a horn and the sound of a vehicle out front. I ran to see who it was, hoping it was O'Malley coming back to tell me that upon further reflection, my idea was brilliant.
It wasn't.
CHAPTER 37
"I've got some explaining to do."
"I agree," I said, standing stiffly, arms folded, in front of Jon Chappell. I was not happy.
"Your friend Lucy's great," he said, unfolding himself from the Sunbeam and trying to make nice.
"I know. She's smart, too. She's the one who spotted the Just for Men hair dye I was too polite to stare at. What the hell did you think you were doing?"
"My job. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare anyone. Then I met you and I liked you. I've wanted to tell you a dozen times since then but it never seemed like the right moment."
All the false bravado fell away. He looked like such a kid, I'd already forgiven him but wanted to drive home the point.
"Anything other than stalking you want to confess to?"
He admitted to driving by the house a few times, once when Lucy was there, and following me to the Paradise Diner a few times. As luck would have it, he also knew my geeky neighbor and had borrowed his telescope one night to spy on me.
"See anything interesting?"
"Nothing worthy of publication. Let me rephrase that: nothing I'd write about. You do have great abs, though."
"Stop trying to butter me up, pervert."
We walked around the porch to the back terrace, where the two muffins O'Malley brought me were crawling with ants. I tossed them into a nearby tip bag. Jon sat on the steps and flipped through the pages of his spiral notebook until he found what he was looking for.
"On the Yoly Rivera front. Like most things, there's good news and there's bad news. I found the wife of the crew leader Yoly worked for when she came to Connecticut. Real sweetheart. She called Yoly every name in the book—and some I hadn't even heard of. I'll spare you the more colorful details, but basically she thought our Yoly was a puta." He brandished the word as if it wasn't part of his regular vocabulary but he was considering making it one.
"I thought I'd make her feel guilty by telling her Yoly disappeared, but the only thing she said was 'Whose husband did she take with her?' "
"She could just be jealous," I said, sitting down and leaning against one of the stone planters. "Pretty younger woman. Mrs. Crew Leader sounds like she might have missed the whole feminist sisterhood thing."
"After thirty years, you'd think she'd mellow out a bit. Don't you girls ever let bygones be bygones?"
"Nope. Friend of mine refers to it as sediment. Never really goes away. Scary, isn't it?"
He filed that feminine insight for future use.
"She also thought Yoly might have been moonlighting as a waitress while she was working as the nanny. Nothing permanent—weddings, parties, stuff like that."
He shuffled through some papers. "The crew leader's kids got a postcard from Yoly with a Rhode Island postmark." He looked up at me. "Life before Xbox; the kids collected stamps and noticed the postmark. Mom was thrilled; the farther away the better—she was just sorry the letters didn't come from Outer Mongolia."
"You think she relocated?"
"No. According to Mrs. Rivera's letters, she heard from Yoly twice after that, both times from Springfield. Not much else, I'm afraid. No luck finding Celinda Rivera yet, but I'm still working on it."
He was craving approval. As punishment for stalking me, I withheld.
"What's the story between you and the congressman's aide, the lovely Ms. Colford?" I asked, watching him squirm.
"I should have known it was only a matter of time before you started poking around in my direction. We had a thing; it ended. I'm not successful enough for her," he said. "She's dated a guy from the Washington Post."
Suddenly he reminded me of the nerdy twelve-year-old who didn't get picked for softball. Not only did I forgive him, now I wanted to help him make points with the little snob.
"That guy probably makes up his stories. Don't worry. By the time this thing is over, you'll be fielding job offers from all over. Just stay on the high road, okay? Lighten up on the 'Mother's Anguish.' The story's good enough without playing to the lowest common denominator."
I told him my idea about looking for someone who'd videotaped their wedding ceremony the day Hugo and Anna were at the marriage license bureau, and he was on it in a flash, scribbling notes and inventing a story line.
"I don't even have to say what it's about," he said, "in case someone is nervous about getting involved."
"Any ideas about your girlfriend's boss?" I asked.
"Win Fifield and Yoly Rivera didn't exactly travel in the same circles, but it's not impossible they knew each other. Pretty girl on her own, maybe on the sidelines at some high-profile parties? They could have met."
It was more likely she knew Guido Chiaramonte, especially with his taste for Hispanic women. But I had yet to find that connection. I debated whether I should tell Jon my theory about the Peacock sisters and their secret garden.
"Do you know much about herbal remedies?"
He perked up. "That reminds me of our other little drama. Margery Stapley."
We agreed there was something fishy about the one-glass-of-wine-and-she's-on-the-floor story.
"I ran out to e-mail my story about Margery collapsing. When I got back to the party, it had already broken up. I stuck around, offering to help clean up, and I got an earful. Did you know Richard isn't Margery's first husband? She was Margery Russell, married her high school sweetie, a guy named Henry Pierce. The honeymoon was barely over when Henry shipped out to Korea. He never came back.
"Richard was a transplant from Boston, an up-and-coming attorney in her father's firm," Jon continued. "It took a while, but Margery finally agreed to marry him. Seems Dad had a hand in it."
More than a hand. Apparently Margery's father had orchestrated the whole thing, including the financial arrangement that kept all Margery's assets in her own name.
"So she's loaded," I said.
"Correct. And she was so delicate at the time, her father was worried she might kill herself and her inheritance from her mother, who was a . . ." He shuffled through his notes. "Her mother was a Hutchinson—"
"As in the parkway?" I asked, astonished. "All those tolls must really add up."
"Dad didn't want the dough to go to an outsider in the event that something happened to Margery. Stapley married her in the early seventies; my Deep Throat at SHS wasn't sure when."
Jon had done well. "Did you notice the old guy at the party?" I asked.
"Which one?" he asked, and thought back to the crowd at the party. "The guy in the denim shirt? You think that was Margery's first husband? He didn't really die?"
"Calm down. It's not that weird. It was William Peacock."
"No shit."
"Keep your distance. Gerald and I are going to see him first."
CHAPTER 38
The lobby of the Hotel Criterion was a faux Southwestern style I placed as early 1980s. Large, dusty foliage plants softened the institutional atmosphere, but it still had the feel of a private hospital or sanatorium.
The place was empty except for a chubby desk clerk sorting mail and William Peacock, sitting near a small table set up with complimentary coffee and tea.
He was wearing the same tweed jacket and denim shirt he had had on the night before. In his face, I could see traces of the heartbreaker the thrift-shop ladies remembered. It was craggy and lined now, probably from too many years in the sun, and certainly from smoking. The ashtray in front of him was already full, and we weren't late.
"William, thank you for seeing me. Well, us." Gerald Fraser introduced me as the new caretaker of the garden, and, for simplicity's sake, I didn't correct him.
"I hope you don't mind if Ms. Holliday joins us. This is just a chat, not a police matter. As you know, I'm retired, and officially there's no case and
no charges regarding the body found on your sisters' property. But there have been some strange goings-on lately. We thought you might enlighten us on a few things."
William had no problem talking to Gerald, or with my being there when he did. Once again, Richard Sta-pley had been my advance man and had been singing my praises about the good job I'd been doing at Halcyon.
"Not at all. Richard's firm usually handled my sisters' affairs, but he's recused himself in light of her bequest to the Historical Society. Brennan, Douglas and Marshall is handling the will. They just needed me to sign a few papers, and I thought I'd come back and take one last look around. I've got no quarrel with any of Dorothy's decisions." He stubbed out his cigarette. "I guess you're the gal that found the body?"
"Yes, sir."
"Which most people in town seem to think belonged to one of my sisters." He patted his pockets looking for his cigarettes. When he found them, he offered the pack to us. We both passed.
"I understand my sisters were very fond of you, Gerald, so I think I can trust you. 'Course, you may already know."
"That Renata wasn't really your sister?" Gerald said gently.
William nodded. "I was just a kid when I found out. I was pretty torn up. I wanted to get as far away from Springfield as I could. My plan was to hitchhike to California—I thought that'd be more adventurous than taking the train. I got stuck, though, in Texas. Spent the early years there, ranching, moving around quite a bit. Eventually, like most folks, I wanted to settle down, get a place of my own.
"I came back once, in 1959, to borrow money from my sisters. They thought I'd fallen off the face of the earth. I'm not a big letter writer," he explained unnecessarily. "You should have seen them fussing over me." He smiled to himself at the memory. "They wanted me to stay, of course, but I had other plans.
"Anyway, I got a little lucky with the piece of property I bought. We struck oil." He stubbed out his cigarette. "Once that happened, everything else happened so fast, the time just went by. Got a family there. Three sons, eight grandchildren, and"—he paused, counting on his fingers—"twelve great-grandchildren."
He fumbled in his wallet and produced an informal family portrait taken on the sprawling veranda of an enormous house, framed by rambling roses.
I passed the picture to Gerald. "Beautiful family."
"The little gal in the middle is my wife, Lupe. She looks like she could be my daughter, but Lupe and I have been together for over fifty years."
As he put the picture back in his wallet, he asked, "Do you all know about the other stuff? About the garden?" he added.
Gerald looked perplexed.
"I think I do," I said. "Dorothy and Renata were herbalists. They . . . offered herbal remedies to some of the women in the community."
William smiled. "Thank you, Ms. Holliday. They would have appreciated your putting it that way."
"Abortions?" Gerald asked, putting two and two together quickly.
"They were granny healers. Women's problems and contraceptives, primarily. But I couldn't swear there weren't induced miscarriages. My own mother had eight. I don't think they were intentional, but I suppose I'll never know. In any event, she must have figured out what was causing them, 'cause here I am. That's why there was such an age difference between me and my sisters."
I liked that he still kept referring to them as his sisters.
"Dorothy and Renata loved children," he continued. "That may be the only thing they regretted about choosing each other—not being able to have their own. But they also understood most women at the time couldn't make their own choices. My sisters tried to help."
"That's what the unlocked door was for?" I asked.
William nodded again. "Any hour of the night or day, if a gal needed help, Dorothy or Renata would be there for her with teas, oils, or just a shoulder and some good advice.
"I was only here for two days that time I came back. Had to go back to Texas and close on that property. One of those nights, I was in the back, having a smoke, and I hear this little gal whimpering in the garden, crying her eyes out."
"Can you describe her?" Gerald asked.
William shook his head. "It was too dark. And she was hiding behind those little shrubs near the path. Made me promise to stay on the terrace. Poor little thing, she sounded like a kid herself. Wouldn't let me help her or take her inside or anything. I didn't know what the heck to do for her, so I just tossed her a little medal Lupe had given me for the trip and suggested she pray."
CHAPTER 39
We left William Peacock in the hotel lobby. In a few days, he'd be back with Lupe and the grandkids, and Gerald and I would still be knee-deep in more questions than answers.
"So the baby and the mother might not even have been Mexican," I said.
"It'd be quite a coincidence if they were."
"I'm happy about that, for Hugo's sake. It's one less motive the cops will think he had to stab Guido. I'm disappointed, too. I thought we were onto something."
Gerald Fraser checked his watch. "Do you have some time? If you're not in a hurry, I'd like to go to Halcyon. It might inspire us."
We drove to the house in silence, each of us trying to fit William's new information into what we already thought we knew. Gerald made his way to the terrace in the back, where William said he'd heard the woman.
"I'll get you a chair from the cottage," I said.
I brought Gerald a metal bistro chair, and I sat on the brick steps, leaning against one of the stone dogs and looking around at the almost-finished garden.
"What are you thinking?" Gerald asked.
"I'm thinking about what William said. About the roses."
Dorothy's father had been inordinately proud of his rose garden. There was even a hybrid variety he developed, the Lady Sarah. When Dorothy returned from Italy, she had all the roses ripped out of the garden. Some who bothered to think about it thought it was a hatred of their father that made her do it. Others, like Mrs. Cox at the library, believed Dorothy's story that she was allergic. William had told us the truth.
"After Rose's death, she couldn't bear to see another rose wither and die," he'd explained. "The only roses she'd have in the house had to last forever. Her needlepoints, the china, the stained glass window she commissioned.
"That was the real reason for the name change, too," he continued. "It would have been easier to just call her friend Rose, but it would have broken Dorothy's heart to have to say Rose's name over and over again, knowing she was gone."
"Such a beautiful spot to be holding so much sadness," I said.
"Look," Gerald said, "I know you're disappointed about the baby, but there was never any guarantee it was Yoly's, just because of the medal. We may have to rule her out as the mother."
"All that hunting for her and her mother . . . all of Chappell's work . . . for nothing. And if William was back here and gave the mother the necklace sometime in the fifties, we have to rule out Win Fifield as the father. He was my prime suspect." I must have looked as deflated as I felt.
"Don't worry. We're not going to forget about Yoly. Not again. We just seem to have two mysteries here instead of one. And they still may tie in to Guido's stabbing.
"All right," he recapped, "the attorneys contacted William; that's why he came back. Sometime in 1959, when William says he bought his land—"
"You think he may be lying?" I asked.
"People do. It's easy enough to check, though. In 1959, a woman in this town was pregnant and didn't want to be." He threw me a crumb. "The timing fits right in with your candy wrapper research. What do you think happened?" he prompted.
"The woman goes to the Peacock sisters to terminate the pregnancy, but when she gets there, she has a change of heart and coincidentally bumps into William, who gives her the Virgin of Guadalupe medal. Woman has the baby, and unfortunately it dies, probably of natural causes.
"No signs of trauma on the body, and if she went ahead with the pregnancy," I continued, "it's not likely she'd c
ommit infanticide."
"Possible, but not likely. Especially given the careful way it was buried. Let's say the baby predates Yoly; who might the mother be?" Gerald coached.
"Someone who was young, not married . . . or married to a man who wasn't the father . . ."
"Who else . . ."
"Someone involved with an inappropriate or unsuitable . . ." I stopped myself.
Gerald must have seen what I was thinking: he exhaled deeply. "It can't be Hill. Hillary had something called premature ovarian failure—a freakish condition connected with the mumps she had when she was a kid. She went through three years of tests at the Yale Reproductive Center."
With Hillary out, I was running out of suspects.
"If only I'd found Dorothy's journal. Neil MacLeod and I looked for it," I confessed, "one day when Richard was in Hartford at the Wadsworth Atheneum."
"What was he doing there?" Gerald asked.
I shook my head. "Who knows? Something about a painting for an upcoming exhibition." I'd only been half listening when Inez told me.
"The Prendergast?" he asked. "That's the only thing SHS owns that I can imagine the Wadsworth being interested in."
"No idea. I was too busy playing Nancy Drew to listen. I was convinced there was a clue in the damn journal."
"We may have to forget about the journal for now. Use your head," Gerald said.
"Someone pregnant in 1959 who didn't want to be. Someone who'd been raped or was the victim of incest?" I suggested.
I tried to think of all the older women in town. After some time, I said, "How about a grieving war widow? One yearning for the past?"
CHAPTER 40
Hillary was waiting when Gerald and I got to the Paradise parking lot. She did not look pleased. Gerald mouthed "I'll call you" from her car as she tore out and headed east onto the highway, and probably back to her place.
I'd planned to grab a bite at the diner but saw Mike O'Malley through the miniblinds and backtracked to my Jeep instead. The last thing I felt like doing was sparring with O'Malley and then winding up having to apologize, which seemed to be the way most of our encounters went.
Pushing Up Daisies db-1 Page 18