A Groom With a View jj-11

by Jill Churchill

  “Or maybe it was just one of them," Shelley said. "One who wanted to keep it all to herself.”

  Jane thought about it for a while. "Maybe. But the aunts clearly snubbed her after dinner. A mere hireling daring to be chummy with them. They're really dreadful snobs."

  “But last night they were the senior members of the Thatcher family present at the lodge. If she had discovered something and was being honest about it, wouldn't they be the ones she'd tell?"

  “I guess so," Jane said. Then she thought for a long moment. "What if she actually knew them? Before now, I mean. Or knew of them?"

  “What do you mean?"

  “They're all of an age. And nobody waits until they're seventy to become a dressmaker," Jane said. "She said she'd sewn a wedding dress for Marguerite way in the past. What if her association with them caused her to know some secret about one or the other?”

  Shelley's eyes lit up. "I like it," she said. "Maybe she made maternity clothes fifty years ago for the virginal-and-damned-proud-of-it Aunt Iva. They wouldn't remember someone as lowly as a seamstress, but she'd remember doing a secret job for a high society type."

  “And the aunts knew perfectly well who she was and what she knew and despite their bickering, they'd stick together against an enemy.”

  The cat jumped off Jane's lap and walked away, as if disapproving of the conversation. Jane laughed. "So we know what the cat thinks of that theory."

  “Pretty bad, huh? A bit of a stretch?" Shelley asked.

  “Just a bit. Shows a good imagination though. You get an A for effort."

  “Okay, forget the aunts for the moment. It's easy to imagine them destroying someone with a few well-chosen words, but not with raw physical effort. If it has to be someone here, what about Uncle Joe?"

  “Motive? And let's try to stay away from secret pregnancies and Nazi connections."

  “The treasure, of course," Shelley said confidently. "He's been here for ages, diligently searching, pulling up floorboards, checking the backs of drawers, peeling up bits of linoleum, pawing around in the stuffing in the animal heads, tapping on walls for secret passages—"

  “Digging up the gardens?" Jane put in.

  “Yes, and he's found nothing. Then this cranky old lady whose heavy sewing machine he has to take upstairs finds the treasure. And it's going to be turned over to Jack and the aunts. Not a penny for loyal Uncle Joe. So he pushes her down the stairs, nips into her room — or wherever she said it was — and snags it.”

  Jane nodded. "And why would she have chosen to tell him, of all people, about it?”

  Shelley slumped in her lawn chair. "Good question. Unless it was a complaint. 'Here, my good man,' " Shelley said, pretending to be Mrs. Crossthwait, " 'when you've got that sewing machine in place, get rid of that rolled-up document stuck down the throat of that awful bear rug's head.' How's that?”

  Jane grinned. "Let me guess. The rolled-up document is proof that Uncle Joe was once a mass murderer."

  “Or Nazi sympathizer," Shelley said cheerfully. "Take your pick.”

  Eleven

  one of the football players broke away from the game and went inside, nodding politely to Jane and Shelley and coming back out a few minutes later with his hands full of sodas, which he passed around. Another went inside the lodge as the first was coming out and he, too, returned a few minutes later.

  “I guess I should check on how the shower is going," Jane said lethargically.

  “They'd find you if they needed anything.”

  “Still, I need to appear to be earning my keep. Be right back. If Jack Thatcher catches me sitting down, he'll probably take a hundred bucks off my fee.”

  “Where is he, anyway?"

  “He and his pals are off looking at a lake somewhere on the grounds, I think," Jane said. "Probably planning where the ninth green ought to be. Wait here."

  “You plan to leave me here watching an amateur football game? No way," Shelley said.

  As they approached the side room, Jane was pleased to hear lots of chatter that sounded downright friendly. Apparently the earlier ice had been broken. Eden and Layla were coming out the door. Eden was heading toward the hallway to the monks' rooms, presumably for a potty break, and Layla was halfway to the kitchen. "Do you need something?" Jane asked Layla.

  As she was speaking, Mr. Willis shoved open the kitchen door, balancing a tray of more champagne cocktails. "That's what I was looking for," Layla said. "We're all getting giggly-tipsy. Aunt Marguerite is telling what she considers risqué stories.”

  Layla looked so girlish and happy Jane had the urge to hug her. "You're having fun, aren't you?"

  “If it weren't for Mrs. Crossthwait, this would have been my best weekend in years."

  “You're not missing your children?”

  Layla laughed. "No, not a bit. Should I feel guilty?"

  “Absolutely not," Jane said.

  Jane and Shelley oozed in the door and caught Livvy's eye. "Anything you need?" Jane mouthed.

  Livvy was surrounded by a pile of wrapping paper and ribbons. Somebody had fetched a rather wicked-looking knife from the kitchen to help open gifts. Jane guessed nobody wanted to go to Mrs. Crossthwait's room for scissors.

  Livvy pushed the paper and ribbon aside, got up, and came over. "I need a box to put everything in so none of the little things get lost. There might be some in the attic. Would you mind—?”

  “Not at all," Jane said.

  As she and Shelley went up the stairs, Shelley said, "She was actually smiling slightly. And it looked like a real smile."

  “I can't wait for this to be over," Jane said. "Things seem to be going well now and maybe we'll just coast on through the rest.”

  Jane reached out to push the attic door. It wouldn't open. She tried again, thinking it was just stuck, maybe from all the rain and humidity. "That's strange. It seems to be locked."

  “Locked? It wasn't locked yesterday. We looked in here, remember?”

  Jane stared at the door. "How very odd. I'll see if there's a seam ripper in Mrs. Crossthwait's room."

  “Is there a connection between those thoughts?" Shelley asked, trailing along.

  Mrs. Crossthwait's room was a bit of a mess. The police had gone through her luggage and all her sewing materials. They hadn't deliberately vandalized the room, but it was pretty untidy. "We'll have to come back here later and pack everything up," Jane said. "Ah, here's the seam ripper. I can open the lock with it."

  “What a peculiar skill," Shelley said.

  “Doesn't every mother know how to get a little kid out of a bathroom when he's locked himself in?" Jane asked.

  “After I had to crawl in the ground floor bath‑ room once to rescue Denise, I had the locks taken off," Shelley said, "and put little hooks up high so I could lock myself in, but they couldn't.”

  Jane took the seam ripper, went back into the hall, and sat down in front of the door, studying the lock.

  “Where did you ever learn a skill like this?" Jane smiled. "From a Frenchman that I was desperately, madly in love with."

  “And you didn't marry him?"

  “Couldn't. He was thirty and I was ten. My dad was attached to the embassy in Paris and we had a house outside the city. My folks wanted my sister and me to attend the local school to improve our French. A lost cause in both our cases. Monsieur Baptiste LeClerc was the math teacher. He taught us to pick locks. It was supposed to illustrate some mathematical principle, in theory. Actually, I think he was teaching us to be his accomplices. Halfway through the term, he disappeared. My mother later told me he'd been arrested for breaking into houses.”

  Shelley laughed. "Training you girls to be little Oliver Twists, huh?"

  “He was divine. A dark sweep of hair he was always tossing back artistically. The longest, most beautiful eyelashes I've ever seen. If I'd met him as an adult, I'd have wanted to smack him into shape. But when I was ten, he was so romantic." She prodded gently at the lock for a moment and there was a snick. J
ane opened the door. "Don't ever mention to Mel that I know how to do this.”

  There was a primitive path through the junk in the attic and some fairly fresh-looking cardboard boxes at the far end. The two women gingerly picked their way through and selected two boxes, then paused to examine a few other things. There was a wooden box full of shotgun shells, some shotguns that had been shamefully neglected, and a large old wooden crate full of clothing at the far end of the room. Mostly outdoor stuff. Wellington boots so ancient they were cracked, plaid wool coats, furry hats, lots of gloves and mittens, none of which appeared to have mates. Shelley picked up a pair of old-fashioned jodhpurs with the tips of her fingers. "These might be useable if they were cleaned."

  “Perfect for a jaunt to the grocery store," Jane said. "Doorknobs."

  “What?"

  “A whole box of mixed doorknobs," Jane said, squatting down to look into another wooden box halfway along the path. "Why would anyone collect doorknobs? They're not even interesting or nice ones."

  “Oh, look. Croquet sets. Two or three of them," Shelley said. "Let's take one set out and put it up on the lawn. I was a whiz at croquet when I was a kid. I cheated like mad.”

  They'd made their way to what appeared to be the "sports section" of the attic. There were baseballs with their coverings coming off, bats that had seen better days, a couple of footballs, and a snarl of badminton nets.

  “People used to have very different ideas about leisure time," Jane said. "Now when we sit around relaxing together, it's usually in front of a television set or computer screen. It must have been fun to come out here in the summers."

  “We better get these boxes down to Livvy. What's that black stuff?"

  “Electrical tape?" Jane guessed, glancing down at what looked like a snake nest next to the doorway. "No, it's fabric. Seam binding. How odd. Are you taking the croquet set down?"

  “I'll come back with some rags and clean it up a little later," Shelley said.

  They closed the attic back up and delivered the boxes to Livvy. The party was showing signs of breaking up. The ladies were tossing back last drinks and looking for their purses. Kitty was being practical and sorting out the gifts and neatly folding the salvageable wrapping paper. Layla was leaning back in a comfortable chair, smiling and looking like she might just fall asleep right there. Eden, who was wearing a loose, colorful tiara of discarded package ribbons, was trying to get the aunts moving along.

  “We're going to dinner in a bit. Don't you two need little naps first?" she was asking. Iva's wig appeared to be trying to turn itself around backwards on her head and Marguerite was hanging onto a table as if were the only stable thing in the world. Eden glanced at Jane and grinned. "Those were very good champagne cocktails.”

  Eventually the room cleared. The trophy wiveswere gathered up by their husbands and taken back to the local motel. The aunts were tucked away in their rooms to sleep it off. Layla hoisted herself out of the chair, staggering only slightly, and went to take a nap, too. Kitty had put away the pretty negligees, slippers, underwear, and more conventional kitchen and bath gifts. Mrs. Hessling was looking extremely sober and very relieved that it was over and was making noises about finding Errol to take her back to the motel. When she'd gone, the only one left was Livvy, who looked tired.

  “Get a little rest before dinner," Jane advised her.

  “I'll see if Daddy has anything for me to do and if not, I will rest for a while. This is very tiring and must be even more so for you, Jane."

  “I don't mind," Jane said. "It's what I came here to do. And most of the hard work was the planning ahead.”

  Jane stayed behind to tidy up the room a bit more. Shelley had gone to clean up the croquet set. The sounds of the football game had faded as Dwayne's friends had drifted back to the motel to change clothes and clean up for the bachelor party later.

  There was only one seemingly untouched glass of champagne left. Mr. Willis came in and started clearing away the last of the plates and Jane made a dive for the drink before he could take it away.

  “You did a lovely job, Mr. Willis," she said.

  “And this really is delicious. No wonder they all had to stagger away.”

  He nodded his gratitude. "I'm leaving for a while to pick up a few more things and have put salads and dinners in the refrigerator for you and Mrs. Nowack. Will Mr. VanDyne be staying for dinner, too?"

  “I don't know. I haven't had much of a chance to speak to him."

  “I'll leave enough for him, too, then.”

  He shimmered off, Jeeves-like, and Jane sipped her champagne in blissful quiet. Which was interrupted a few minutes later by Dwayne Hessling. He looked upset.

  “What's wrong?" she asked.

  “I've been looking everywhere for you," he said furiously. "Come see.”

  They met up with Shelley in the main room, loaded down with mallets, balls, and hoops. Sensing something was up, she dumped all of it on a chair and followed Jane and Dwayne to his room.

  It had been trashed.

  Drawers were pulled out and thrown about, even the empty ones. The contents of his suitcase had been strewn around the room. A bottle of aftershave had been poured all over the bed. In the bathroom, his toothpaste had been squeezed out all over the floor, his shaving gear was in the toilet on top of a wadded-up dress shirt.

  “Oh, my gosh!" Shelley whispered.

  “What's this about?" Dwayne demanded of Jane.

  “I don't know," she said. "When did this happen?"

  “While we were all outside," Dwayne said angrily. "I changed my clothes to play football."

  “Dwayne, why would anybody do this?" Jane asked.

  “Hell if I know."

  “Somebody's really mad at you," Shelley said. "Nobody's got the right to do this to my things. And I want it cleaned up right now."

  “Then let's clean it up," Jane said. She'd been sympathetic at first, but his orders, sounding so like Jack Thatcher's, were beginning to annoy her.

  “I'm not in charge here, you are. I'm a guest," he sneered.

  “You're Mr. Thatcher's guest. Want to ask him to muck around in your toilet?" Jane asked.

  “I'm going to find a convenience store to get new toothpaste," he said. "I hope everything is in order when I get back.”

  He stomped out, leaving Jane and Shelley red-faced and furious. They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Jane said, "I still have one empty room on this hallway. We'll just put his things in there. Dwayne can find other cleaning ladies."

  “What a bastard he is," Shelley said.

  “It's as if the twerp's been sitting at Jack Thatcher's knee, learning to be an imperious pig of a man," Jane added.

  “Jerk. Jerk. Jerk," Shelley muttered, picking up a shirt, shaking it out, and looking in the rubble for a clothes hanger.

  Half an hour later, they closed the door on the room, leaving the tiny window open to air it out, and Jane stuck a note on the door that said: You're now in the room across the hall.

  Twelve ·,

  About four, the family and wedding party started gathering in preparation for the rehearsal and dinner afterwards. Running through the wedding itself was a breeze except that the aunts wanted greater roles. What those roles might have been was anybody's guess. They were to be escorted to the first row of chairs on the bride's side as "mother of the bride" substitutes. But at every stage of the proceedings, they kept asking, "What should we be doing now?”

  Jane had half a dozen possible sarcastic replies to this query, but restrained herself and kept telling them they were to just sit still and enjoy themselves.

  The groom, best man, and groomsmen came in from the side room in good order. Kitty, Layla, and Eden came down the stairs gracefully. If any of them were thinking about Mrs. Crossthwait's deadly descent, they didn't show it. Kitty had made Livvy a really spectacular practice bouquet out of the ribbons and bows from the bridal shower. Livvy, in a pale blue suit she was wearing to dinner, would have made a l
ovely bride just as she was, ribbon bouquet and all. Jack, escorting her, even looked pleasant and pleased.

  The practice only took a few moments to run through. A minibus Jack had hired was waiting at the front door to take the bridal party and families to a very nice restaurant in Chicago, which was why Mr. Willis, as well as Jane and Shelley, were getting a well-deserved break and also the reason they were leaving so early. The travel time plus the dinner would give Jane, Shelley, and Mr. Willis a good five or six hours of blessed quiet.

  As the guests started boarding the bus, Jane caught a glimpse of Uncle Joe in a fairly decent suit and tie. "Is he going along?" she whispered to Shelley.

  “I can't imagine why he'd be invited," Shelley replied. "He's hired help like us, only of longer duration.”

  But Uncle Joe got on the bus.

  As Eden went back in the lodge for something she'd forgotten, Jane waylaid her. "Eden, why's Uncle Joe included?" she asked bluntly.

  Eden looked a bit confused. "Why, because he's part of the family. Didn't you know that?”

  “What part, exactly?" Jane asked.

  “He's Jack's brother. Illegitimate, of course. Older half-brother, actually, to Jack, Iva, and Marguerite. I thought you knew. That's why he getsto live here for free without doing much work. Have you seen my beaded purse?"

  “On the long brown sofa," Jane said, and looked at Shelley with a stunned expression that matched her friend's.

  They didn't speak until all the guests were on board and the bus pulled out. Even then, they headed silently for the kitchen. Jane poured them each a cup of coffee and they sat down at the big table in the center of the room.

  “Who'd have guessed?" Shelley finally said. "I thought 'Uncle' was just an honorific title. For long service to the family."

  “I can't quite get a grip on this," Jane said, peering into her coffee cup as if a revelation might appear there. "Older half-brother, Eden said. So he was born, or at least conceived, before old O. W. even married."

  “Eden said the old boy was quite a womanizer."

  “Do you suppose his wife knew before she married him?" Jane asked.

  “We'll never know, but apparently the rest of the family knows if Eden does," Shelley said. "Uncle Joe really is Livvy's uncle."