by Susan Breen
“What happened?” Maggie asked. Automatically Maggie reached for a pen and paper. When she was worried, her hands needed to be busy. Unfortunately, Kosi had just decided to unfurl on top of her desk, so she bumped him and he lunged at her, his claws catching in her sweater.
“Are you all right?” Maggie asked, pulling her cat off her.
“I’m lucky to be alive. My sister tried to kill me.”
“What?”
Racine paused, then began to speak loudly. “Yes, I’d love to see you for tea. Let’s say in an hour.”
“Of course,” Maggie said, wondering who might be listening. “I’ll be right over.”
“Yes, that sounds fine.”
Maggie then called Agnes, who sounded like she was at a bar, even though it was Monday morning. There was loud music playing and she heard the shimmer of glass.
“Get over there now,” Agnes said, after Maggie told her what had happened.
“Do you want me to wait for you?” Maggie asked. If Domino truly had tried to kill Racine, Maggie wasn’t sure she was up to handling that herself.
“Get over there now!” Agnes shouted, and Maggie clicked her phone shut. She knew her other partner, Helen, was in the city today. So Maggie was on her own. “All right,” she said. “All right.”
She checked out her face in the mirror and her mother stared back at her. Same white hair, blue eyes and glistening pearl earrings. “I’m a detective, Mom,” Maggie said. “And I’ve got a case and I’ve got to do this right.” She looked over at the cat, who scowled at her. Maggie clasped her hands together for a moment.
Then she set out for Stern Manor.
Chapter 4
Stern Manor loomed. There was no other word for it, Maggie thought. It was a massive granite structure that bristled with turrets and cornices and chimneys. There were giant arched windows and scrolled iron balconies, and from the left side of the roof grew a giant tower that looked a little like Jack’s bean stalk. At the top was a balcony from which, as Maggie recalled, the late Leonard Stern liked to give speeches. She remembered standing on this lawn after the moon landing and hearing him hold forth on the progress of mankind.
Now Maggie pulled her red Audi TT into the driveway and paused for a moment. It was definitely a house that gave you pause. There were no flowering bushes to welcome you, though there was a massive copper beech tree that Maggie admired. Now, that was a tree. It must be fifty feet tall and it glowed like fire. She felt its benevolent presence behind her as she made her way up the steps to the front door.
The door was surprisingly small, for such a large house. It was hidden under an awning, as though the house itself was saying, Don’t bother me. Stay away. Maggie paused for a moment, intimidated. She was not a person who intruded. She didn’t assert. She was a little like a tree, she thought. She just kind of stood there and grew, or occasionally drooped. But Racine was in trouble and needed her help. That gave her courage. She rang the bell.
A maid answered, wearing a black dress and a frilly white apron.
“Yes, ma’am?” she drawled in a Southern accent.
“I’m here for Racine,” she said, and the maid nodded knowingly and then led Maggie into the house.
It was an entryway designed to make you gape, and Maggie did. She followed the maid down a long hallway, paved in patterned tile, at the end of which was a window that opened onto the Hudson River. The view seemed to stretch all the way up to Beacon. Maggie was still admiring the vista when the maid turned right and began going up a winding flight of steps. Maggie followed, walking across the landing and through a door, and found herself in the most feminine room she’d ever seen. There were frills and geegaws everywhere. There were porcelain lamps and ruffled chairs and little woolly lambs and all sorts of marble balls, and in the center of it all was a huge bed, draped in salmon-colored silk, and in the middle of that was a little old lady wearing a white peignoir. Maggie had worn something like it on her wedding night. She had a sudden vision of herself and Stuart Dove in a room filled with red roses, a gift from all his college students. They stayed at the Waldorf Astoria, another large Victorian building.
Racine Stern stood next her mother, and she looked awful.
Her red beret clung to her like an amoeba. Her black clothes, normally elegant, sagged against her as though she’d lost weight. Her right hand was bandaged and she clutched the bed with her left as though that alone were keeping her upright. Madame Simone, however, was all animation.
“Ah, Maggie Dove,” she said. “How nice of you to pay us a visit.”
Maggie looked over to Racine, who shook her head slightly. So she hadn’t told her mother that she believed Domino had tried to kill her.
“You have a lovely spot here,” Maggie said.
The view from her bedroom was even better than the one downstairs. The shoreline dipped in, giving the illusion that the room hovered over the water. The leaves were turning and their oranges and golds seeped into the river, so it looked like a rich wash of paint ran through it.
“I am very lucky,” Madame Simone said. She cocked her head. “I have nothing to do but enjoy this beautiful view. Not like you and Racine, both of you so busy with your work, and me nothing more than a drain on your productivity, as my husband would have said.”
“Nonsense, Mama, he adored you.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling as she looked down at the ring on her finger. It was a large diamond that didn’t quite fit with the frilliness of the room, but then Leonard Stern was a man who liked to make statements. “Always marry a man who fears you just a little, don’t you think, Maggie Dove? You must never let them get too comfortable. They must never know the power they have over you or they will crush you.”
“I can’t imagine anyone crushing you,” Maggie said. Madame Simone seemed so vibrant at an age when most people were failing. Or most people were dead. Maggie wondered what confined her to her bed and, as though reading her mind, Madame Simone said, “My legs, foolish things.” Her wheelchair sat in the corner, alongside a table of silver-framed pictures, atop a plush lime-green carpet.
“But don’t tempt me,” Madame Simone said. “There’s nothing more boring than a woman who complains. Don’t you agree?”
“Oh, Mama, you don’t complain at all, though you have good reason to.”
“What do I have to complain about?” she said dryly. “I am old and ugly, I cannot walk and I am completely dependent on others. And my daughter has come home with this Lucifer and this boy and this…maid.”
“It’s so unfair,” Racine cried out. “All you’ve had to suffer and now this. It’s not right.”
Madame Simone settled back into her bed. “See how she fusses over me? I tell her all the time, she should go, leave me alone, put me a home with the other unwanted, but she will not leave me.”
“Never.”
“Of course,” Madame Simone said, her eyes twinkling, “now that my other daughter is home, Racine has more freedom. I’m sure Domino would not hesitate to take care of me.”
Racine stiffened. “Take care of you—I wouldn’t trust her to serve you your tea.”
“She is fierce, this one,” Madame Simone said. “Like her father.”
“I am honored to be compared to my father. He was a great man.”
Maggie was touched by Racine’s devotion, which felt genuine, if slightly over the top. She’d always assumed Racine stayed with her mother out of obligation. She’d assumed she would rather have led a different life, to have married and traveled and had children, but she seemed so fiercely devoted that Maggie wondered if she was actually living exactly the life she wanted to live. She’d had a discussion with Helen on that very point the other night, with Helen saying that people wound up with the life they wanted.
Maggie couldn’t help but wonder how her own relationship with her daughter would have turned out. Juliet died before she went away to college, just as she was on the brink of finding her wings. Maggie had been excited for her, but
dreaded losing her. In an odd way, her relationship with her daughter intensified after she died. Had Juliet lived, their relationship would have been watered down by time. She would have married, had children, moved on. But as it was, she stayed forever a young girl in Maggie’s mind; she was alongside her every day.
“Bring her the picture,” Madame Simone said. “Show her.”
Racine went over to one of the cluttered bookshelves and retrieved a silver-framed photograph. She held it out to Maggie.
“My father,” Racine whispered.
There he was, Leonard Stern, with his manly shoulders and strong chin and wavy brown hair, and yet it was Madame Simone, even tucked into his arm, who grabbed your attention. She had the sort of beauty that’s startling. You look at it and you can’t look away.
“Back when I was a war bride, a thousand years ago, if you can imagine that anyone can still be alive and yet be so old. I met Leonard in France after the war ended. I was only 21. He was quite a bit older, but he knew what he wanted. He married me and brought me here as his trophy.
“He treasured you,” Racine said.
Madame Simone nodded. “Poor Domino,” she said. “She tries so hard, doesn’t she? She’s always had to work to keep that man of hers. I would imagine it gets exhausting.”
“Exhausting,” Racine muttered. “You’re charitable. It’s degrading to have my sister treated like that.”
“I feel sorry for her,” Madame Simone said.
“You may feel sorry for her, but you shouldn’t give her money,” Racine said. “She made her choice.”
“My cherie, everything that I have is yours.” Her voice thickened. She must be very tired, Maggie thought. The old lady leaned back against her pillow. Her eyes flickered.
“You need to sleep,” Racine said, as she tenderly brought the coverlet up around her mother.
“You talk to your friend,” Madame Simone whispered. “You tell her your secrets. And remember, cherie, to bring me my tea at 4:00.”
“Of course, Mama,” Racine said, and then she guided Maggie into an adjoining room, also decorated in pinks and whites, with plush green carpeting, though the windows were smaller and the lighting more diffuse. As soon as Racine walked in and shut the door, her whole aspect changed. It was like someone had shot her full of Adrenalin. She ripped off the bandage and showed her arm to Maggie. There were two puncture wounds on her wrist.
“Do you know what this is?” Racine asked.
“No.”
“The bite of a tarantula.”
Chapter 5
Thanks to Detective Grudge, Maggie felt equipped to deal with a number of scenarios, from shoplifting to credit card fraud. But tarantula bites were not on the curriculum.
“How did that happen?” she asked.
“My sister put her pet tarantula in my bed. I woke up last night and found it on my arm and when I screamed, it bit me.”
Maggie said a quick prayer of thanks that Kosi, her cat, bad as he was, was not a tarantula.
“Domino wants to kill me. She wants my money. She told me so.”
“Could we go back a step,” Maggie asked. She could hear Detective Grudge in her mind. There were seven questions he demanded future private detectives memorize: what, when, where, why, how, who and which—though that last didn’t seem material to the situation.
“Domino’s been here for almost two weeks. What’s been happening?”
Racine began to burp, as though coughing up bile, and she tugged a handkerchief from her pocket.
“Acid reflux,” she explained.
She gestured for Maggie to sit down on a chair, which like the ones in Madame Simone’s room was soft and plush. Maggie pulled out a notepad and wrote the date on top of it, and then Interview with Racine. This must be where she sleeps, Maggie thought, right next to her mother’s room. There was a thin bed that reminded Maggie of summer camp. It seemed strange that in such a large house she was confined to such an uncomfortable room, but then Racine answered her unspoken question.
“This isn’t my regular bedroom. I’ve only been sleeping here since Domino arrived. I will not leave my mother alone until that woman departs.”
“Tell me what happened?” Maggie asked, though in truth, that hadn’t been necessary. There was no stopping her. Racine looked like she was going to explode.
“As soon as they arrived, Domino demanded to see Mama. I told her she couldn’t; it was her resting time. She could see her after she woke up. I said she would have to wait. Perhaps she was not used to hearing the word ‘no.’ And that maid…that maid,” Racine added, shaking her head. “I said she could sleep in the servants’ quarters, but Domino said no. The maid would sleep with them. That this should take place in my father’s house!”
She began burping some more. Maggie spotted a pitcher of water and poured her a glass, which she drank right down.
“I left them to their business, but then Lucifer came to me.” Here she started to blush. The burps began coming more and more frequently. “He said wanted to introduce himself, to get to know me. I just thought he was being pleasant, and I showed him around the house. But when I got back to my mother’s room I discovered Domino had used him as a ruse. She was in my mother’s room with the door locked. I could hear her asking for money. She told Mama that she’d gone through her entire inheritance, and she just needed 20 million dollars. Just! Because Lucifer has a new tour starting up, but the music company went under and he needs to finance it himself. What is that to my mother? She doesn’t listen to his music. I pounded on the door until finally she opened it, and when she came out she was smiling. She told me that my mother might say no and I might say no, but there were other ways for her to get the money.”
Racine crossed her arms. Maggie noticed lines of salt underneath her eyes. She’d been crying and her tears had dried.
“What did she mean?”
“Under the terms of my father’s will, our money must stay in the family. So if I’m dead, when my mother dies the money would go to Domino.”
“She was threatening you?”
“Yes,” Racine said. “Yes. And then last night I woke up to the tarantula.”
She looked exhausted, and no wonder, Maggie thought. She probably hadn’t left her mother’s side since Domino’s return. Outside, the weather was a cool gauzy blue, all so beautiful, and yet inside it was overheated. Maggie pictured people going by on the Circle Line, admiring grand Stern Manor and envying the people who lived there. A spring inside the chair poked at her. Like ghost’s fingers, Maggie thought, and she remembered rumors she’d heard that this house was haunted. Just then, she noticed a hauntingly beautiful young boy on the back lawn. He had pale white skin and dark hair and he walked with an athlete’s grace.
“Milo,” Racine said, clenching her knees tightly together. “Domino’s son. He will eventually inherit all the money. After my mother dies, and if I die.”
“I’m not a lawyer,” Maggie said. “But it can’t be legal to make threats against someone like this. I think you should go to the police.”
“No,” Racine said. “I can’t bring the police into it. We have a reputation to uphold. The Stern name was very important to my father.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted you to be killed.”
“No,” Racine said. She looked at a picture of Leonard Stern, hanging on the wall. There was a red rose in a vase underneath it. “But I don’t want to involve the police. I want you to talk to her. Now that you’re here, and you’ve heard the story. You can tell her to leave me alone.”
“You want me to threaten your sister.”
“Yes, I’ll pay you a thousand dollars.”
Again with the thousand dollars, Maggie thought.
“You must talk to her and make her leave me alone.”
Maggie wanted to tell her that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t even get her six-year-old ward to stop hurling himself into her stomach. She couldn’t get her angry cat to stop hissing at her throughout the
night. But then she thought of Agnes and Detective Grudge and how serious they both were. Private detective work was like life, in that it required you to do things that scared you. She would have to try to frighten Domino into leaving Racine alone.
“Where is she?” Maggie asked.
“She’s in the cellar,” Racine said, “with the ghosts.”
Chapter 6
The stairs to the cellar were located by the front door, through an opening that looked like a closet. Following Racine’s directions, Maggie tapped on the door and then went down the steps, toward a light she could see emanating from the bottom. There she found Domino sitting in a lotus position in the center of a white circle. Around her, at the compass points of the circle, stood a spray of dried flowers, a statue of a voluptuous naked woman, a statue of a horned man and a dark green candle.
As Maggie watched, Domino inhaled deeply several times, then exhaled quickly, as though she were panting. Then she pinched her right nostril shut, and breathed in through the left. She did that five times, and then pinched her left nostril shut, and breathed in through the right.
“The light is my presence,” she whispered. “The light is power. It fills me until I am presence, until I am power.”
Then she opened her eyes and sighed. “Maggie Dove.”
At that moment, Maggie noticed, in the corner, a cage that housed a tarantula. It was a large creature, furry and dense, and Maggie shivered thinking of what it would be like to have that touch you.
“They’re such beautiful pets,” Domino said. “So beautiful, so loyal, so misunderstood.”
“I understand she bit Racine.”
“Of course she did. Poor thing was terrified. How would you feel if someone looked at you and started screaming?”
Domino stretched over and reached into the cage, pulling out the creature and holding it closely against her. She wore a thin black yoga outfit that was more of a second skin than a piece of clothing.
“They’re so delicate,” Domino said, rubbing her hand against its legs, which opened and closed against her touch in a manner Maggie found disturbing. She noticed Domino wore a delicate antique ring that didn’t seem in keeping with her personality. “Thank the gods she wasn’t hurt. Their bellies make them heavy and when they fall they can explode.”