Vultures at Twilight

by Charles Atkins

  ‘Geez, Barbara,’ Christina chimed in. ‘You’ve moved from call ID to caller totally paranoid. Although it’s not a bad idea.’

  ‘Did she tell you about the murders?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘No, haven’t heard a word about it. What murders?’

  I was about to pipe in with a suitably timed ‘it’s nothing’, but I realized under the circumstances, my credibility would plummet.

  ‘Sleepy little Grenville has woken up,’ my eldest commented. ‘There’ve been three murders.’

  Christina looked at me. ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’

  ‘It didn’t seem pertinent,’ I commented.

  ‘It’s actually four,’ Ada added, unable to keep quiet.

  ‘What! Who?’ Chris asked.

  ‘Let’s see.’ Ada sipped her tea. ‘First there was Philip Conroy, or at least we think he was first; they didn’t find his body for quite some time. Then came Mildred Potts, Carl McElroy, and finally Rudy Caputo.’

  ‘Jesus, Mother, why didn’t you tell me?’ Christina said accusingly. ‘Wait a minute . . . Did you say Philip Conroy? Not . . . Oh, no.’

  ‘I know,’ said Barbara, ‘it just doesn’t seem real.’

  ‘Why would anyone kill Philip?’

  Ada couldn’t help herself. ‘That’s what everyone’s wondering. Lots of motives being tossed around . . . All the victims were antique dealers. Everyone in town pretty much knew them, or knew of them.’

  ‘Is someone bumping off the competition?’ Barbara wondered.

  ‘Probably,’ I said, wanting the conversation to die.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Ada, ‘but it doesn’t add up. Why would someone actually kill? It seems excessive.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Christina commented. ‘If you look through history, money is a great motive, but usually there’s more to it; some sort of emotional context. Unless of course we’re talking contract murders, in which case the person who pulls the trigger is strictly in it for the money and the motive lies with their employer.’

  ‘What sort of emotional context?’ Ada asked, warming to the topic.

  ‘Powerful things, often sexual in nature, even though that may not be what appears on the surface.’

  ‘These weren’t sex killings,’ I said. ‘These were, with the exception of Philip, not attractive people.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Chris explained. ‘Although the disparity in types clearly eliminates the sexual sadist.’

  ‘How do you know so much about this?’ I asked, wondering what my assistant-professor daughter was doing expounding on murder motives.

  ‘Just an interest,’ she said. ‘I’ve even been toying with the idea of doing a Shakespearean-review course that would focus on homicide.’

  ‘Like Lady Macbeth?’ Ada asked.

  ‘Exactly. Shakespeare’s plays contain an encyclopedia of murder and motive.’

  ‘So what do you think the motive is here?’ Ada asked.

  ‘Off the top of my head, I’d say it had something to do with small-town secrets.’

  A swallow of tea went down the wrong pipe; I choked and coughed.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Chris asked, patting me gently on the back.

  ‘What leads you to that conclusion?’ Ada persisted, a concerned expression on her face as my coughing continued.

  I carefully took a sip of tea, and tried to calm the flutters in my chest. Why do they have to talk about this?

  Chris explained her reasoning. ‘They all knew each other, moved in the same circles, right?’

  ‘Yes?’ Ada prompted.

  ‘And if they’re antique dealers they probably all buy up estates and go through people’s belongings.’

  ‘Also correct,’ Ada said. ‘In fact I’d gotten quotes from two of them; actually three if you consider that Tolliver is Philip’s . . . was Philip’s partner.’

  Chris looked at Ada. ‘That’s a strange coincidence.’

  ‘Don’t look at her that way,’ I said, having got my breathing under control. ‘This isn’t Arsenic and Old Lace; we’ve not been poisoning the locals with elderberry wine.’

  ‘I loved that play,’ Ada remarked.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Chris interjected. ‘But you have to admit it’s odd.’

  ‘We’ve thought about that,’ Ada said. ‘Odd and scary. Anyway, you were saying.’

  ‘Think about it, antique dealers are forever digging through other people’s stuff. What if one of them found something they weren’t meant to see?’

  Ada shot me a look. ‘What sort of thing?’ she asked.

  ‘Something big.’ Chris said.

  ‘Something worth killing over,’ Barbara stated, completing her sister’s thought.

  The phone rang and there was silence. Barbara looked at me and then at her sister. Before I could get out of my chair, Barbara had picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ she said. There was a long pause. ‘I’ll get her.’ She cupped her hand over the receiver. ‘It’s for you, a Detective Perez?’

  ‘I’ll take it in the bedroom,’ I said, not wanting them to overhear.

  ‘Secrets, Mother?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘No, I want privacy.’ As I walked to my bedroom I marveled at how quickly my oldest daughter and I were able to push each other’s buttons. I hated to think it, but I was glad that most of the year three thousand miles separated us. I loved her dearly, and she drove me crazy.

  I picked up the phone, and yelled back into the other room, ‘You can hang up now.’ I waited before speaking, listening for the click. ‘Mattie?’

  ‘Hello, Lil, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Physically, I’m fine,’ I said, settling on to the edge of my bed. I looked across at my reflection in the mirror. It was unsettling, as though I could see my skull beneath the skin. ‘My nerves are shot, though.’

  ‘Anything I can help with?’

  ‘Not unless you can drive my daughters to the airport.’

  ‘Car trouble?’

  I laughed. ‘No, I’m just not used to playing the invalid.’

  ‘Oh. I think I have some news you might want to hear. I’ve been looking through those diaries; I don’t think Wendy Conroy was talking about your husband.’

  I let her words wash over me, like a balm on my jangled spirit. I didn’t want to say anything lest she change her mind.

  ‘You still there?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, just enjoying the first bit of good news I’ve had in a while. It sounds like you found something.’

  ‘Maybe. I needed to ask you if you knew who she was seeing as her psychiatrist?’

  I racked my memory, trying to remember whom Bradley referred to in those days. ‘I can’t remember. There was no one in town; it would have to have been someone in New Haven or Danbury. I bet it’s in her records.’

  ‘Who has those?’

  ‘Good question. When Bradley passed away I gave all the open charts to Winston Fairbanks. The old records, the ones that had been closed out, are still in boxes. I should probably have done something with them, but I never once saw Bradley destroy a chart.’

  ‘Where are they?’ she asked, a sense of urgency in her tone.

  I turned toward my walk-in closet, with its abundant rows of built-in shelves. ‘I’m looking at them.’

  ‘Can you find her chart for me?’

  ‘They’re all in boxes.’ And I hated the next words out of my mouth. ‘The doctor told me not to do any heavy lifting. I’m going to need someone to help get them down.’

  ‘I’ll be right over.’

  Before I could mount an objection, or at least ask her to come after my daughters had left, she had hung up. I sat, phone in hand, looking around at the familiar room. The mahogany and tiger maple furniture that had been a wedding present from my parents, the four-poster where I’d slept with Bradley for over thirty years. Some nights as I fell asleep I could still see him, always on his back softly snoring. Across from the bed stood two Chippendale highboys that had descended throug
h my family for over two centuries. Their reddish, intricately grained wood gleamed with the efforts of a thousand polishing rags. Years back an appraiser had told me that some distant relative had refinished them, which had seriously diminished their value. That was fine by me; they would pass to Barbara and then to my granddaughter, Heather.

  Muffled voices carried from the other room. I knew that Barbara would be trying to worm information from Ada. I wondered if there was any way that I could get them out of the house before Mattie arrived. As I got up to go back into the living room, the phone rang. I picked it up. ‘Hello?’

  Again, the silence. I wasn’t going to wait for his ominous pronouncement. But as I went to hang up the receiver, I heard Barbara’s voice over the earpiece.

  ‘Who is this?’ she asked.

  I held my breath, hoping that there’d be no reply.

  ‘You’re next,’ the voice rasped and hung up.

  I sat there, holding the receiver. ‘Barbara?’

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ she said over the line.

  ‘You know it’s not polite to listen in on other people’s conversations.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘I don’t want you to say anything about this to your sister.’

  There was silence. ‘I can’t do that. We need to talk.’ She hung up.

  I seethed. At what point did my daughter turn into my mother? Who was she to tell me that we needed to talk?

  From the other room I heard Chris ask, ‘What is it?’

  I held my breath.

  ‘Mother’s hang-up caller, and in light of what’s been going on around here, I don’t think we should dismiss it as nothing.’

  I hung up. My cheeks flushed. That last comment had been a direct hit. I remembered why I liked having Barbara on the other side of the country. Granted it was her choice, but sometimes absence did make the heart grow fonder. As an adolescent, Barbara and I had struggled over everything. It didn’t matter what the topic was. Something as simple as a request to turn down the music would dissolve into screaming and slamming doors. She had no right to intrude this way and I didn’t know how to stop her.

  A gentle knock at the bedroom door. I looked up and saw Ada.

  ‘Can I come in?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  She took a seat in the satin-striped slipper chair next to my mother’s hope chest. ‘Barbara seems quite upset.’

  ‘Seems so,’ I whispered, listening to the steady beat of rain on the roof. ‘She has a tendency toward the dramatic.’

  ‘She’s worried,’ Ada replied, keeping her voice low. ‘And so am I. Lil, if anything happened to you . . .’

  ‘I know, it’s just something about the way she shows it. I know it sounds paranoid, but ever since she came, I’ve had the feeling that she wants me in some protective setting. She didn’t want me to leave the hospital. I was really worried she’d get them to commit me or something, and now she’s trying to butt into things that are none of her business. You have no idea how tense I feel right now. And these calls have me so frightened.’

  She moved from the chair and sat beside me on the bed. ‘We’re going to get through this.’

  ‘Try telling that to my daughter. If someone had given her permission to tie me to that hospital bed, she would have done it.’

  Ada leaned against me. ‘It’s not that bad. At least Chris seems reasonable.’

  ‘She is. I mean, they both are, and I feel guilty talking like this. I know they love me and I know they’re worried. It’s just not what I need right now.’

  ‘What do you need, Lil?’ She took my hand; our eyes locked.

  My breath caught, and cutting through my fear and worry like a knife was how much I wanted to kiss her. And then the unthinkable. She leaned in and kissed me on the lips. I was stunned at first as her hand pressed tight in mine. And her lips so soft, unlike any kiss I’ve ever had. I smelled jasmine and had the sense of falling, of being weightless and of wishing this moment could last forever; it was perfect.

  And then the doorbell rang.

  Reluctantly, we parted, and it felt like something was being ripped from me. She wore a strange smile, and if I had to name the expression on her face, I couldn’t; part impish smile, a whiff of embarrassment, and a heart-stopping image of the young girl she’d once been, and who apparently still existed. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,’ she said.

  I desperately wanted to say something, but I couldn’t find the words.

  And the door rang again.

  What was I supposed to say? My best friend had just kissed me, and not like friends, and I really liked it . . . not like friends. ‘That’s probably Mattie,’ was all I could manage. My mouth was dry as I let go of Ada’s hand – she has the most beautiful eyes – and got off the bed. ‘She wants to look through Wendy Conroy’s old records.’ Lil, you idiot, tell her how you feel. Do it now! But before I could figure what to say, a new voice from the other room.

  It was Aaron, not Mattie. ‘Is my grandma around?’ he asked, coming in from the rain. He spotted us coming out of the bedroom. ‘Grandma, Mr Jacobs came over. He needs to talk to you.’

  ‘Hold on.’ She headed toward the door, and as she did our moment faded. Perhaps it never happened, just some psycho aftershock of my heart attack.

  In the doorway I spotted Tolliver’s BMW, getting pounded by the relentless storm, and pulling up behind it was Mattie Perez’s unmarked black car.

  As Aaron waited for his grandmother, Tolliver stepped into the doorway. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Lord, when it rains . . .’

  ‘What is it, Tolliver?’ Ada asked, her cheeks flushed.

  He looked around and saw Barbara and Chris.

  ‘I should probably tell you alone.’

  Before he could follow through on that, Mattie slammed her car door and sprinted up the walkway.

  My lips tingled, and I couldn’t look at either of my daughters. What would they think? But I was also deathly curious as to what had gotten Tolliver so worked up. Something was wrong, or, more accurately, something else was wrong.

  Mattie, in a yellow police slicker knocked on the open door, and stepped into the foyer.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Barbara asked.

  Ada blurted, ‘That’s Detective Perez.’

  ‘Thank God.’ Barbara brushed by Tolliver and Aaron. ‘Detective Perez,’ she called loudly, stopping a dripping Mattie in front of the door, ‘my mother’s been getting death threats. You have to do something.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  My living room had turned into an Agatha Christie denouement, complete with lightning and the roll of thunder. I watched as Mattie, dressed in a navy slack suit and cream turtleneck, surveyed the assembled: me, Ada, my two daughters, Aaron and Tolliver Jacobs.

  She caught my eye. ‘Death threats, Lil?’

  ‘At first I thought they were nothing, hang-up calls.’ All I could think was that I did not want to be talking about this with my daughters here.

  ‘Mother! I heard,’ Barbara shot back and turned toward Mattie. ‘You’ve got to do something.’

  ‘What exactly did the caller say?’ she asked, accepting the ubiquitous cup of tea from Ada.

  ‘He’s after my mother,’ Barbara stated, her voice half an octave higher than usual.

  ‘What did he say?’

  I interrupted. ‘“You’re next.” That’s all he said.’ Before Barbara could embroider, I coughed up the details. ‘It started yesterday, before that I swear they were just hang ups.’

  ‘While you were in the hospital?’ Mattie asked, placing her tea on a coffee table and pulling out a flip pad to take notes.

  ‘Yes, I didn’t think about it, other than it made my stay less than pleasant. I figured when I got home, they’d stop.’

  ‘But they didn’t.’

  ‘No, I’ve had another two since I came home.’

  ‘So it’s someone who knew when you were discharged.’

  Aaron, who had gone largely un
noticed, piped in. ‘What if someone saw her come home?’

  ‘A possibility,’ Mattie agreed. ‘It sounds like they’re coming pretty close together.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s someone watching us,’ I said. ‘I don’t think he wants there to be anyone around but me.’

  ‘But I spoke on the phone,’ Barbara said. ‘He knows that you’re not alone.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Mattie. ‘You two sound remarkably alike.’

  ‘We do not,’ I said, trying to keep my tone light, not wanting anyone to know how frightened this had me.

  ‘You do,’ said Ada.

  ‘Yeah,’ Chris agreed. ‘You always have, particularly on the phone.’

  ‘Let me make a couple quick calls,’ Mattie said. ‘I’m going to want to trace the call.’

  ‘He doesn’t stay on the line long,’ I said, harking back to numerous television shows where it took minutes to trace a call.

  ‘That doesn’t matter any more; it’s instantaneous,’ she explained. ‘And for right now, I don’t want anyone to leave. She looked at Tolliver. ‘And what are you doing here?’

  ‘I was going to call the station, but I needed to talk to Mrs Strauss first.’

  ‘Why?’ Mattie asked.

  ‘What’s wrong, Tolliver?’ Ada asked.

  The dealer took a deep breath. ‘The Hassam painting is missing.’

  ‘Missing?’ Ada asked. ‘As in misplaced? Or missing as in stolen?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.’

  ‘What are we talking about?’ the detective asked. ‘What is the Hassam painting?’

  Tolliver filled in the details. ‘Mrs Strauss had commissioned me to liquidate an estate for which she was the executrix.’

  ‘This is a nightmare.’ Ada said. ‘What am I going to tell her children?’

  ‘It’s insured,’ Tolliver said. ‘But the insurance company is going to launch a full investigation.’

  ‘How valuable a painting?’ Mattie asked.

  Without pause, Tolliver answered, ‘Over two million, maybe as high as three.’