by Sandra Balzo
But Joy seemed more concerned about the mother than the daughter. ‘But Sugar herself is coming? Why?’
AnnaLise canted her head. ‘Presumably because she and Hart did the dirty, with Lacey the product. Remember? It’s the theme of the party.’
‘But that’s impossible. Not them doing the dirty part, of course. That’s a given. But Hart met Sugar a full decade after he had his vasectomy.’
‘Huh?’ AnnaLise, looking again at her list, frowned. ‘If so, I shouldn’t have put her on here as a “possible.”’ She re-scanned the names. ‘I hope I didn’t make a mistake.’
But Joy Tamarack was already striding away from her across the green lawn: the long white limo was gliding to a stop at the mansion’s main entrance.
SIX
AnnaLise Griggs followed her friend, trying not to lose any of the fabulous wine still nearly filling her glass. When she reached the front of the house, though, Joy Tamarack had disappeared.
AnnaLise didn’t quite know what to do or where to go. If Dickens Hart hadn’t yet appeared to greet his guests, his acknowledged bastard-daughter certainly wasn’t interested in playing hostess.
‘Psst.’
Joy and Boozer Bacchus were perched above her on the rail of the upper-floor veranda. Dodging the conga line of valets and drink-bearers, AnnaLise slipped in through the front door. Other than Hart’s office, to the right of the vaulted-ceilinged and marble-floored foyer, she had seen very little of the house.
Safe to assume, though, that the sweeping staircase would bring her to the second-floor bedrooms. And that the first one to the right – directly above Hart’s office – would provide access to the occupied balcony.
Climbing the steps, AnnaLise found herself on an unwalled, balustraded catwalk running the length of the house from north to south. The walkway overlooked the foyer to the east, or front of the house, and a lofty room with a view of the lake to the west. The latter featured, on the near wall, a fieldstone fireplace and cozy seating area with moss-green sofa and armchairs.
But that was pretty much where the ‘cozy’ ended.
The center of the massive room had been cleared for a long buffet table, its top dotted with silver chafing dishes that would soon hold pre-dinner canapés. The wall opposite the fireplace – and probably forty feet away from it – was all glass and opened onto the patio and the lakeshore beyond.
‘Well, la-dee-dah,’ AnnaLise said, and then turned her attention to the upper floor.
The open walkway where she stood morphed into a traditional walled hallway in both directions once away from the vaulted core of the house. Choosing north, AnnaLise opened the first door on the right and stepped into a lovely room with a four-poster bed. The polished rosewood table by the door held, appropriately, a vase of pink roses and beside that was a piece of parchment, folded into the shape of a pup tent and printed in ornate script: ‘Welcome to Hart’s Head?’ AnnaLise said, reading the legend on the paper as she stepped through the open French door to join Joy and Boozer Bacchus on the balcony. ‘I never knew this place had a name.’
‘Didn’t till yesterday,’ Bacchus said. ‘The boss had those things express-printed overnight.’
Joy shrugged. ‘I voted for “Dick Head” myself, but Caesar Disgustus overruled me.’
Bacchus smiled and turned to AnnaLise. ‘Good to see you, AnnaLise. Did Lorraine drive with you?’
AnnaLise had forgotten he knew Daisy from the days she’d worked in the White Tail Club’s kitchen. Lorraine Kuchenbacher had never been a ‘fawn,’ or at least so she’d assured her daughter. ‘She did. And Mama – Phyllis Balisteri – came with us, too.’
Bacchus seemed less happy to hear that last sentence, but before AnnaLise could wonder why, the threesome’s attention was drawn to the limousine.
‘Holy shit,’ Joy observed, as guests piled out. ‘Looks like the stretch version of a clown car at the circus.’
‘Should only be six of them,’ said Bacchus, pulling at this grizzled mustache. ‘Less’n they brought friends.’
‘Six … seven,’ AnnaLise said, counting. ‘Could one of them be Shirley, the other surviving ex?’
Joy gestured with her wine glass. ‘The age-appropriate one with the blonde helmet hair streaked by gray.’
‘Actually,’ AnnaLise said, ‘most of them are surprisingly age-appropriate. Or at least closer to Dickens’ age than I would have expected.’
‘I tried for a nice cross-section,’ said Bacchus. He’d taken a silver flask out of his suit coat’s inside lapel pocket.
AnnaLise ignored the flask. Who was she, with most of a half bottle of wine in her glass, to ask Boozer if he’d started – or resumed – well, boozing? ‘What do you mean? Didn’t you or Patrick Hoag just send them all a letter?’
‘He did,’ Bacchus said, unscrewing the attached lid and tipping the container to his lips. ‘But you know yourself there were sixty-plus women on that list. And the sad fact is, out of that whole group not one person responded.’
‘Imagine that,’ Joy said, eyes wide and her tone sarcastic.
‘What did you do, Boozer?’ AnnaLise asked.
‘Well, now, I took matters into my own hands, but seeing as I only have the two of them, I needed to be particular. Couldn’t just knock on every woman’s door and explain the situation. So I chose one or two a decade – ones who’d had youngsters that qualified time-wise, starting in—’
‘Will you look at that?’ Joy was pointing to a tiny woman with pure white hair being helped into a wheelchair. A cloud of musky-scented perfume wafted up to their balcony. ‘Did Hart have a cougar? Or, maybe back in the day, they were still called saber-toothed tigers.’
AnnaLise quashed a laugh, thinking her friend might be smarting from Bacchus’ ‘generational’ approach.
‘Rose Boccaccio, age seventy,’ said Bacchus, sealing and replacing his flask. ‘And the man with her is her son, Eddie, fifty-one and a dentist.’
Joy’s head tick-tocked like she was juggling numbers in it. ‘So Rose is two years older than Hart, and her son’s seventeen years younger. That means that Hart couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen when they danced the horizontal mambo.’
But AnnaLise was looking at Eddie, a handsome if thinning tow-head, who was probably about five-nine. A dentist, Boozer had said, and the right height and age for …
She mentally shook herself, taking a mouthful of the lovely wine. The last thing Daisy needed right now – sexy underwear aside – was a boyfriend. Especially one who might prove to be AnnaLise’s half-brother.
‘Yup,’ Bacchus was saying. ‘Most boys appreciate a skilled and steady hand on the tiller that first time and I’m sure the lieutenant was no different.’
‘Lieutenant?’ AnnaLise managed around the cabernet, still unswallowed.
‘You forget me and your daddy went way back to the service?’
AnnaLise, nearly choking on her wine at the word ‘daddy,’ also managed to shake her head.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Joy interrupted. ‘They were in the army together. Loyalty, honor and so on. But can we get back to the cast of our current play?’
AnnaLise shrugged apologetically, but Bacchus seemed fine with the somewhat cutting remark. ‘Joy’s right. It’s water over the dam, that’s for sure. Now those two over there—’
They followed his pointing finger to a woman in her mid-fifties with carefully coiffed strawberry-blonde hair and a glass of champagne in her hand. ‘Lucinda Puckett,’ Bacchus shifted his compass needle, ‘and her son, Tyler, age thirty-five.’ The latter was smiling as he accepted a flute of champagne from a pretty server. ‘Lucinda is from the early days of Mr Hart’s lodge.’
‘Like a stroll down the memory lane of Dickens’ sex life,’ Joy said dryly. ‘I assume Lucinda was a fawn?’
‘She was,’ Bacchus said, nodding. ‘Going to the university back then. Mighty pretty girl, but she knew it, if you get my drift.’
‘You didn’t like her?’ AnnaLise a
sked.
Bacchus shrugged. ‘Had nothing against her personally, except that she broke up the boss’ marriage to Shirley.’
‘Were they married long?’ The journalist in AnnaLise wanted to get her timelines right.
‘Five years, maybe? The lieutenant met Shirley just after he got out of the service. And from the beginning they were good together. She was the one and only for him. Uh, no offense.’ He bobbed his head at Joy.
‘None taken,’ she said. ‘In fact, I wish you’d persuaded Hart of that way back then. Might have saved us all – me, especially – a lot of trouble.’
‘Oh, I tried, but you couldn’t tell the boss anything and I’m starting to think nothing ever changed. It’s like he just plain can’t let himself stay happy.’
‘At least he’s reaching out to make amends, however late.’ AnnaLise couldn’t believe she was defending the man.
‘Well, now, there can be a fine line between making amends and stirring things up,’ Bacchus said, shaking his head. He landed his palm lightly on her shoulder. ‘He’s got you in his life now, AnnaLise, and I know he’s grateful for that. But—’
‘There she is!’ Joy hissed urgently. ‘Sugar.’
Bacchus sighed. ‘She’s the one I asked Mr Hart not to invite. Strictly speaking, she shouldn’t be here – or her daughter.’
AnnaLise leaned over the railing to get a gander at Sugar and Lacey Capri.
‘Will you look at that?’ Joy said, obvious envy in her voice. ‘She literally hasn’t changed a bit, right down to the wardrobe.’
The two women below – both petite with lustrous blonde hair – could easily have been taken for sisters rather than mother and daughter. The elder had a vintage vibe in boots and denim jacket over a short baby-doll dress, while the younger wore simple jeans and a sweater.
‘Wow,’ AnnaLise said. ‘This Sugar’s certainly aged well.’
Joy’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You, yourself, said she hadn’t changed,’ AnnaLise protested. ‘And from what you said earlier, she was at White Tail in the mid-nineties. That—’
‘Would have been right around when Hart and I were married,’ Joy finished for her. ‘You’re absolutely correct. Turns out that Sugar and I were “overlapping” – so to speak – right in this very house.’
A gust of wind blew water from the fountain toward the group below. Sugar squealed.
‘You mean she and Dickens were doing—’
‘Each other? Yes. And in my bed. Or our bed, as Dickens’ reminded me. Which apparently gave him the right to have sleep-overs when I was away. He’d sneak her in so the staff couldn’t tell me. The man was obsessed with her.’
‘And blind to boot,’ Bacchus added, seeming to want to make up for his earlier comment.
‘Obviously,’ AnnaLise contributed staunchly. ‘And it cost him his marriage to Joy.’
But Hart wife number three was squinting down at the duo. ‘Boozer, how old’s the daughter?’
‘Lacey? Fifteen.’
AnnaLise looked back and forth at the females below. ‘But Dickens had his vasectomy in the mid-eighties, not too long after I was born. Lacey can’t possibly be his daughter.’ The journalist had a thought. ‘Unless he had the operation reversed?’
Joy was shaking her head. ‘No way. But don’t worry. You won’t need to share your fortune with this one, at least—’
AnnaLise interrupted. ‘I keep telling you, I don’t want—’
This time Joy got her back up. ‘I know, I know. The oh-so-independent bastard daughter doesn’t want Hart’s money. But like I said before, you deserve it. Right, Boozer?’
‘She’s right, AnnaLise,’ Bacchus weighed in. ‘Your mother never told anybody about you, never asked the boss for so much as a dime. But given the uncertain future you’ve come home to, you need to take what the boss intends to give you. For Lorraine, if not for yourself.’
AnnaLise didn’t try to argue the point. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good.’ Bacchus turned back to Joy. ‘Now, you were saying to AnnaLise about Sugar?’
Joy had an I-told-you-so grin on her face. ‘I was just speculating on Lacey’s age, because to my eye she looks just like her mother did then.’
‘When she broke up your marriage?’ asked the reporter reflexively.
‘I broke up my marriage,’ Joy said flatly, ‘when I found out.’
‘About Sugar?’
‘About Sugar’s age.’
‘Which was?’
‘Fifteen.’ Joy grinned with glee. ‘Exactly the same age as Boozer’s telling us her own daughter is right now.’
SEVEN
Well, thought AnnaLise. I guess that answers the question of what Joy Tamarack ‘had’ on Dickens Hart at the time of their divorce. Not to mention how well Sugar Capri had ‘aged.’ If she had been fifteen at Lacey’s conception and mostly likely sixteen by the time her now fifteen-year-old daughter was born nine months later, that meant Sugar could be no older than thirty-one. Just three years older than AnnaLise herself.
The journalist gave an involuntary shudder. A gap approaching four decades between consenting adults was creepy enough, but fifteen and fifty-something? ‘Wasn’t the age of consent in North Carolina at least sixteen then?’
Boozer Bacchus hesitated, then nodded his head just once. ‘I told the boss he was in for it if anybody found out.’
‘What about Sugar’s parents?’
‘They’d decided she was no good a while before Mr Hart ever met her.’
‘“A while before”?’ AnnaLise was astounded. ‘The girl was just fifteen years old, for God’s sake!’
Joy waved her down. ‘I’ve been through all this, AnnaLise. I was married to the man at the time and, believe me, if I could have thrown him to the dogs I would have. But no one else – not Sugar, nor her parents – wanted to accuse Hart of anything.’
‘Do you think he paid them off?’ AnnaLise was hanging over the railing herself now, trying to get a better look at the twosome below.
‘The parents? I’d put money on it,’ Dickens Hart’s ex-wife said, but his right-hand man’s face stayed blank.
‘So, did Dickens know at the time, Boozer?’ AnnaLise pressed.
‘How young Sugar was?’ Bacchus was shaking his head. ‘Hell, no. The boss always had trouble keeping it in his pants, but there’s no way he was looking for that kind of trouble. She wouldn’t have been working at White Tail in the first place, except that Sugar lied about her age.’
Bacchus took one look at the women’s faces and held up a hand, palm out like a crossing-guard’s stop sign. ‘Now, I don’t mean to go blaming the victim. Sugar probably had her own reasons for lying, probably starting with needing to support herself, what with her parents no longer interested. I’m just saying …’
‘… that there were mitigating circumstances,’ Joy finished for him, her expression bordering on dangerous. ‘The poor, poor boy was duped. Not only did Sugar fib about her age, but Hart also was struck by selective amnesia and forgot he was married.’
Before Bacchus could defend his boss, if he were so inclined, an announcement boomed up from below.
‘Everyone’s to go in,’ Bacchus explained, stepping back through the doorway to the bedroom. ‘Mr Hart plans to make his grand entrance in the Lake Room.’
‘The Lake Room?’ AnnaLise asked as she and Joy followed him in.
‘At the rear of the house between the kitchen and movie theater,’ Bacchus supplied, seeming happy to be on safer conversational ground. ‘The one with the wall of windows facing west toward the lake?’
Of course. The enormous room downstairs that was already set up for the party. AnnaLise tried to re-tent the welcome letter on the table where she’d found it, but it kept slipping off the highly buffed surface.
‘Don’t bother,’ Joy said, passing into the corridor before pivoting to point at a small sign on the wall next to the door. ‘This is your room, see?’
Sure
enough, the card read ‘AnnaLise Griggs’ in the same meticulous script used to letter the welcome card.
‘I had name badges printed, too,’ beamed Boozer proudly. ‘So everybody’ll get to know each other.’
‘That’s … nice,’ said AnnaLise, not really knowing what else to say.
‘I’m just the next door down the hall,’ Joy said, reaching back to pat her friend’s arm. ‘In case you need someone to talk you down.’
As Joy descended the stairs, a valet squeezed by going the other way.
‘I think that’s mine,’ AnnaLise said, reaching for the blue suitcase dangling from one hand of the young man who had greeted them when they’d arrived.
‘The boy’ll take care of that,’ Bacchus told AnnaLise. Then, to the valet: ‘Clothes hung up and in the dresser, suitcase in that closet in the corner. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The kid practically saluted. ‘Do you know where this …’ He held out Phyllis Balisteri’s carpet bag.
AnnaLise reflexively backed up a step, her hand covering her nose. ‘That belongs to Mama,’ she said, muffled, ‘and that last one is Daisy’s.’
‘Lorraine and Phyllis will be sharing this room,’ Bacchus said, opening the door across from AnnaLise’s to reveal another beautiful room – this one with two queen-sized beds and a view of the lake. Like AnnaLise’s, the table by the door held a vase of roses, but these were red rather than pink. ‘You might want to put that carpet bag on the balcony after you empty it, just to air it out a bit.’
‘I’m sure Mama would appreciate it,’ AnnaLise said.
‘And your mother, I reckon, even more so.’ Bacchus’ brow was furrowed as he watched the young valet follow orders. ‘I told Dickens that Lorraine, of all the people invited besides you, deserved a room to herself.’
‘My fault, I’m afraid,’ AnnaLise said as voices filled the space below. ‘I invited Mama along and even Hart’s Head has only so many bedrooms.’
‘Don’t be thinking Phyllis was the straw on the camel’s back. That was our Sugar.’
Bacchus started toward the stairs, but AnnaLise held back, tugging on his sleeve to stay outside the door as the valet finished unpacking Mama’s carpet bag. ‘I didn’t think Sugar was on the list I gave you.’