Still, I felt a little pouty as I scanned the reedy perimeter of the pond, Nikon at the ready. It was anybody’s guess if the swan family would be in view this early, but I had promised Emma regular photo updates, so here I was.
A few geese caught the early sunshine on the bank nearby. A splotch of white caught my eye at the far side of the pond. I stood motionless for a full minute and was rewarded by the first viewing of the day of the swan flotilla. The proud cob led the way—or was it the pen? It was difficult to tell the male from the female unless they were in close proximity. Then his slightly larger size was evident. Anxiously, I counted the fuzzies paddling furiously in their parent’s wake. I was fearful that the snapping turtles might have dispatched one or more of the young cygnets, since the duckling and gosling population seemed to have been seriously depleted during the past week. Two … three … four, and the remaining parent brought up the rear. I sighed with relief. I had heard from others that the swans made excellent parents, but until recently, I hadn’t been sure why their young survived far more often than the other waterfowl. Then I had witnessed their dad in action.
One afternoon, as the swan family lolled in the sun on the grassy bank, a foolish goose had wandered over to investigate a crust of bread or some other detritus left by some well-meaning human who didn’t realize how bad the stuff was for the birds. Intent on his trashy snack, the goose had come too close to the dozing cygnets. Papa swan, whose turn it had been to remain vigilant while his missus napped, sprang into action.
In two seconds, he was on his feet and had morphed into a monster swan, puffed out to twice his normal size. He had advanced on the luckless goose in full hiss, wings arched and neck stretched forward menacingly. The transformation stopped the goose cold. He backed off very, very slowly, his prize forgotten. When an appropriate distance had been re-established between the swan brood and the interloper, the cog offered a final hiss, then deflated and returned to preening his feathers as if nothing whatever had happened.
Now I smiled to myself, remembering the scene. Whatever the species, we parents were all alike. If someone or something threatened our babies, we were all capable of throwing an impressive hissy fit. I reminded myself that my baby was expecting an update photo of the swans and hurried to snap one to send to Emma later.
As I passed through the Law Barn’s lobby a few minutes later, I was pleased to hear from Jenny that our disapproving correspondent had apparently decided to skip a day. That was a welcome surprise, as was the sight of Margo curled up in her usual spot on the sofa, checking e-mails on her laptop, as I entered the MACK Realty office.
“Well, hi there, Sugar!” She looked up from her task, the hated reading glasses on the end of her nose, and greeted me sunnily, but I was still miffed. “Are you and the Colombian feudin’ yet, or are you still protected by cohabitation shock?”
I deposited my purse and coffee mug on my desk and busied myself changing from my walking shoes to office pumps. Hell would freeze over before I would ask about her dramatic exit of the previous morning or how her conversation with Strutter had gone. If they chose to keep secrets from me after all we had been through together, then so be it.
But Margo was no fool. Sensing the chill in the air, she promptly set aside her laptop and padded over in her stocking feet to wrap both arms around me where I sat. “Poor Kate,” she murmured consolingly, “abandoned by her nearest and dearest friends on one of the most traumatic days of her adult life. I’m so sorry, Sugar.” She released me long enough to spin my chair around to face her. “You know I’m just dyin’ to hear all about it. Give.” She wiggled her impeccably groomed eyebrows at me and crossed her eyes.
I thawed immediately, unable to resist Margo’s silliness, and launched into a full account of the previous evening. Within minutes, we were laughing together about everything from the unbelievable clutter to Armando’s naïve pronouncement about allowing no cat hair on his bed. Margo found that especially hilarious.
“Oh, that is too funny,” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “I give Jasmine two weeks to have that man totally under her spell.”
“One,” I countered, and we were off in another gale of laughter. “Well, this has been very therapeutic,” I sighed when I could speak again, “but now it’s your turn. Anything you’d like to tell me?”
Margo’s expression quickly turned pensive, but she met my eyes steadily. “Honey, you know I’d tell you absolutely anythin’, but the fact is, you may not want to know this about me. It’s not somethin’ I’m proud of.”
“You had an abortion at some point,” I said, careful to keep my tone neutral. “I already figured that out.” I gathered my thoughts and leaned forward to be sure I had her full attention. “Margo, do you have some twisted notion that I’m going to judge you for that? Any woman who came of age during the sexual revolution and didn’t get pregnant was either plug ugly or damned lucky. I was lucky. Many of my friends weren’t. Luck of the draw.”
Margo’s shoulders, which had been slightly hunched as if to ward off a blow, sagged with relief. “I should have known better. I did know better than to think you’d go all sanctimonious on me, but I’m still very glad to hear you say it.” She dropped back onto the couch and began searching in her handbag for her compact, which she used to make some minor repairs to her eye make-up. Satisfied, she snapped it shut. “Strutter knows that, too. After all, she confided in you before me, remember.”
I had to admit that was true. “So why all the secrecy?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Force of habit, I guess. You weren’t raised in a particularly religious family, and your mama and daddy were nice, ordinary, middle-class people. It was easy for you to keep your adolescent escapades private, whatever they may have been. But for Strutter and me, it was different.”
“What do you mean? Different how?”
Margo thought for a moment. “Strutter was the daughter of a Baptist minister. From the moment that baby girl could toddle, she was watched like a hawk by every self-righteous member of her daddy’s congregation, just hopin’ to catch her doin’ somethin’ embarrassin.’” She shrugged. “That’s just human nature. You’d better believe that girl was married before Charlie was conceived.” Charlie was Strutter’s twelve-year-old son by her first husband, from whom she had long been divorced. “As for me, you know I was married to the mayor of Rome, Georgia’s son in my impetuous youth. I’ve already told you about his skirt-chasin’ ways and how I took my revenge by havin’ affairs of my own, to my daddy’s everlastin’ disgust. What I haven’t told you is that a much earlier fling resulted in a very unwanted pregnancy.”
Margo’s eyes went flat as she looked out the window and remembered. “I was nineteen, the summer between my freshman and sophomore years at Emory.”
“You went to Emory University?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.
Margo shot me a look. “Are you saying that it’s not possible to be gorgeous and brilliant, too? Hush, and let me get through this. I had a temporary job at the university bookstore. I had chosen to stay on campus for the summer to escape what I thought was my parents’ excessive interest in my social life.” She flashed me a grin that didn’t travel to her eyes. “Probably a bad choice, now that I think about it.
“Anyway, into the bookstore one day walked Robert Branham. He was twenty-six, just discharged from the U.S. Army. He had been a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne, all very excitin’, and just about as good lookin’ as it is possible for one man to be. I helped him find the textbooks for his summer classes, we got to talkin’, and …” She shrugged eloquently. “One thing led to another, and after a couple of weeks, nature took its course.” Again, the bleak stare out the window. “I know you won’t believe this, but Robert was my first.”
“You first what? Oh!” I bristled at her assumption. “Why wouldn’t I believe that? You’ve always had, shall we say, a healthy sexual appetite, but come on, Margo. I know you far too well to think you were ever a slut. We a
ll had our youthful indiscretions, but I hope none of us is the naïve little fool she was at nineteen years of age.”
Margo’s mouth twisted wryly. “You’ve got a point there, Sugar. So there I was in mid-August, two months gone and scared witless. It did not even occur to me to tell my parents.” She rolled her eyes at the idea. “Mama would simply have died from the shame of it, and Daddy … well, things would just never have been the same between us. He had to be able to think of his darlin’ daughter in a certain way, you know?”
I nodded slowly. I knew.
Margo gave herself a little shake and hurried on. “I won’t bore you with the details, but you will recall that abortion was illegal at that time, so I couldn’t go to a doctor. But Robert knew a registered nurse who helped girls like me out from time to time. She even let me stay at her apartment for a day or two afterward and supplied me with antibiotics to prevent an infection. Sally her name was. I remember that her cat had had a litter of kittens.” Again, the sad smile. “It really wasn’t at all horrific. Just sort of surreal, like it was happenin’ to someone else entirely. I went back to work on Monday with no ill effects at all. Physically, that is.”
I kept silent while she decided what else she wanted to say. “The thing is, what I needed to tell Strutter, is that there hasn’t been a week since then that I haven’t wondered if I did the right thing. It never goes away. In fact, my doubts get worse with each passin’ year. Oh, I forgave that frightened nineteen-year-old who didn’t think she had any other choice back then. But very soon after, and ever since, there’s been this feeling in my heart.” She pressed both hands to her breast and looked directly at me. “What if I hadn’t done it, Kate? What if I’d tried harder to find another answer? I might have a big, strappin’ son with his daddy’s good looks or a gorgeous, grown-up daughter with my amazin’ style and charm.” She made a self-deprecating face. “Wouldn’t that be somethin’?” she finished sadly.
I lost my struggle to keep my emotions at bay, and my eyes filled with tears. “But Margo, things were so different then. The social mores were determined by how our parents had been raised, and back then, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy would have shamed you and your family. You didn’t think you had a choice because you really didn’t have a choice, or not one that you could live with. Today, you would have a dozen options and would feel free to choose among them. But back then, you would have done anything in your power to avoid hurting your parents. I understand that completely.”
I stood up to give Margo a hug, but she waved me off lightly. “No, no, we’ll have none of that. I’ve already repaired my face once this mornin’. I just thought Strutter needed to hear what I just told you from someone who’s been through it before she rushes off to some clinic. And now you’ve heard it, too.”
She looked at her watch and leaped to her feet, scrambling as always to locate her discarded shoes. “I’ve got to get over to Vista Views again. I’m fillin’ in for Strutter today, but she’ll be along tomorrow. Rhett’s out back in the pen, so ask Jenny to keep an ear tuned, okay? You know how those squirrels love to taunt him. And Kate …” She stopped and gave me a rueful half-smile. “Don’t agonize for me, or for that matter, for Strutter. I’ve lived with my mistakes for a lot of years now, and I’ll go right on livin’ with them. Strutter has more choices than she thinks she has. She just needed that pointed out to her. She’ll be just fine, I know it.”
And for the second morning in a row, Margo ran up the stairs to the lobby and was gone, leaving me with one hell of a lot to think about.
* * *
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. In fact, the phone barely rang, giving me the entire afternoon to catch up on paperwork and send the morning’s swan photo to Emma via e-mail. Rain clouds darkened the sky in mid-afternoon, and I switched on my desk lamp to brighten the office. Looking up the half-stairway to the lobby, I saw that Jenny had done the same thing.
The cool rain continued to fall as I made my way home to The Birches that evening. It had become my habit to check my rearview mirror frequently for black vans, but the rain and the headlights in the early dusk made it impossible to pick out colors. I arrived at the condo without incident and activated the electric garage door opener with the programmed button on the Altima’s visor. Once again, I was grateful for the attached garage that sheltered me and the groceries I had bought on the way.
Armando had left work early to spend a couple of hours minimizing the remaining clutter on the first floor. By the time I let myself into the kitchen, I was pleased to see that the cartons that blocked cabinet doors had disappeared along with those that had been stacked in the hallway. I felt cheerful enough to call out, “Lucy, I’m ho-ome,” in my best Desi Arnaz imitation as I set the green tote bag loaded with the makings of a spaghetti dinner on the table and went to hang my raincoat in the front hall closet, which was surprisingly tidy.
“Very funny.” Armando leaned over the loft railing and blew me a kiss. “How was your day, Cara?”
“Why don’t you come down here, and I’ll tell you all about it?” I invited, smiling up at him. For perhaps the thousandth time in the five years I had known him, I was enchanted by his Latin good looks.
As I concocted pasta sauce and Armando assembled a big salad, I filled him on my tour of the Henstock house and my idea about turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. Throughout my recitation, he listened closely, as he always did when I spoke to him. Although his concentration was probably due partly to the fact that English was not his first language, I still found his attention charming and warmed to my story.
“That beautiful old house is really something. You wouldn’t believe how lovely some of the rooms are despite years of neglect. That wide, planked flooring and recessed windows, some of them with windowseats. Straight out of a Jane Austen novel. And the marble-tiled fireplaces in the bedrooms, most of them still functional. Even the proportions of the rooms are appealing. And that ballroom on the third floor! I can just see a small wedding or a fundraising event, maybe a wine tasting. If that kitchen were updated, it could cater all sorts of parties, Armando. The possibilities are endless, and it’s right on the Broad Street Green, which gives it all sorts of historical appeal. It shouldn’t be too difficult to attract an interested investor, do you think?”
“It is a very interesting idea, but as the older Miss Henstock mentioned, there is the problem of the skeleton. What is happening in that regard?”
I repeated my theory that the mystery of the skeleton in the Henstocks’ basement would only heighten the public’s interest in the property.
“The public, yes. The public always has an avid interest in such things, does it not? But potential investors might well be reluctant to put money into what amounts to a crime scene. What progress has been made in the investigation?”
We moved into the living room, where I opened the glass doors to the fireplace and put a match to the wood fire I kept laid in the grate, ready for an evening like this. The dry wood caught quickly, and bright flames quickly sprang to life. As if by magic, both cats materialized and settled onto the hearth rug. A fire in the fireplace was a top draw, second only to dinner being served.
“According to Margo, who gets her information from John Harkness, of course, the police have been unable to identify the body. As far as the medical examiner can determine, death occurred in the mid-1940s, and the body was walled up very soon thereafter. Notices have been published asking for information surrounding the disappearance of a forty-ish woman around that time, but so far, no one has come forward.”
I pulled the firescreen shut and adjusted the glass doors for maximum draw. “They’ve also drawn a blank on the plumber who found the body. The card he gave Ada turned out to be bogus. The phone number on it is no longer in service, and the company name on the account was fictional. John says they may never be able to close this case.”
I sank down onto the sofa next to Armando, whose arm automatically lifted to make room for me next to him
. This is nice, I thought contentedly as the aroma of marinara mingled pleasantly with a whiff of wood smoke. I could get used to this.
Armando was silent for several minutes, gazing at the fire. I hoped he was having similar thoughts about our new domestic arrangement. “So what do you think?” I finally prompted him.
“About what?”
“About the Henstock house. What do you think about finding an investor and converting it into an elegant bed-and-breakfast?”
With the fingers of his free hand, Armando gently tipped my face up to his. I felt the full voltage of his warm brown eyes as they smiled into mine.
“I think we should get married,” he said.
Nine
As if my universe were not already reeling, our censorious correspondent was back the next morning with his most alarming message yet. “What makes you assume it’s a man?” Jenny asked, holding the unopened envelope by one corner. “Couldn’t a woman be capable of a stunt like this?”
She had a point. I had good reason to know that a woman could indeed be our poison pen-pal. A couple of years back, a local businesswoman had been similarly tormented by a female blackmailer. She had turned out to be a religious zealot, or “nicey-nice behaving badly,” as Margo put it.
Using the letter opener Jenny handed me, I carefully slit open the envelope, again postmarked Storrs, Connecticut, and shook out a single piece of white paper and a news clipping. Holding the paper open at one corner, I poked it open with the letter opener and read aloud: “The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the rampart of Jezreel.” I looked at Jenny blankly. “Yikes.”
A Skeleton in the Closet (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) Page 11