by Sylvia Nobel
“No wonder my cousin was so hateful,” Audrey murmured, “No wonder he thinks I’m an imposter.”
The doctor waved away her remark. “I’ll call and have another talk with him. Hopefully, he’ll have simmered down. I don’t know all the details but, while Grady was busy frittering away the family fortune, Haston has done the lion’s share of work the past few years. It’s understandable that both he and Jesse would be upset by what’s happened. And, if I were you, I’d try to work with them to sort out the particulars of how you want things handled from this point forward.” He scribbled something on a sheet of paper and handed it to her. “I’ve listed the name and phone number of both your father’s attorney and accountant in Bisbee.”
“I’m not sure what to do,” she said, faintly. “I don’t know anything about running a mine...or a town.”
He stared at her thoughtfully. “It may not even be necessary for you to stay here. If you and Haston can work out the financial arrangements, he may be able to act as your agent and you can remain solely in an advisory capacity. But, that’s something you’ll need to discuss with the attorney and your cousin.”
There was a light rap on the door behind us and his nurse stuck her head in. “Doctor, your ten o’clock is here.”
“Thank you, Anna.” He immediately got to his feet, so we rose also as he said to Audrey, “I have to go.”
His curt dismissal left her with a look of wounded surprise as he swept past her towards the door. He paused momentarily with his hand on the knob before turning to face her. “Don’t judge your mother too harshly, young lady. She did what she thought was best for everyone.”
“Thank you for...being her friend.”
His jaw muscles worked overtime. “I’m not so sure you should thank me,” he answered softly.
Audrey looked understandably taken aback and he quickly added, “I’ll have Anna call D.J. to come and drive you up to the house. If you have any other questions that I can answer freely, please call me.”
I jumped in with, “I have a question, Doctor.”
He looked slightly perturbed, but answered, “Yes?”
“Why did you instruct your nurse to call Audrey on Sunday night and give her directions to drive into Morgan’s Folly on Boneyard Pass?”
Dr. Orcutt’s shaggy eyebrows flew to his hairline. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
Chapter 7
The early morning coolness had vanished by the time we collected our luggage from the doctor’s house and carried it to the street to wait for our ride. My quick phone call to Whitey confirmed that he’d spoken to several people about clearing away the toppled tree, and if I could drop by the Muleskinner after the job was complete, he’d drive me back to retrieve my car.
Edging out of the sun into a small patch of shade, I looked impatiently at my watch. Dr. Orcutt had explained that D.J., the handyman employed at the Morgan house, had been summoned and would arrive shortly to pick us up. That had been well over an hour ago.
Since leaving the doctor’s office Audrey had fallen back into her pattern of non-communication. No doubt she was still reeling from the disquieting information she’d learned, and I hoped she didn’t regret having asked me to bear witness to the emotion-charged scene that had opened up a floodgate of new questions.
Sitting slump-shouldered astride one of the suitcases, her face cupped in her hands, she stared dully across the roofs of the buildings that fronted the main street, and beyond to the scarred hills encircling the town. To coin one of Ginger’s favorite phrases, she looked like she’d been ‘rode hard and put away wet.’
“So, if his nurse didn’t make that call,” Audrey said, suddenly voicing her thoughts, “who did? And why?”
“Assuming he’s telling the truth, I don’t know who. Yet. But the why is much more disturbing.”
“What do you mean?”
I hesitated. I didn’t have a smidgen of proof, but I was now viewing our harrowing trip down Boneyard Pass in a new light. A sinister light. It seemed more likely now that the rusted pipe had been deliberately deposited in the road to slow the car and place us in the path of the boulder. Was it meant to merely frighten her or was there something more diabolic behind it? Recalling the questionable circumstances surrounding Grady Morgan’s death spurred me to plunk myself down beside her.
“Audrey,” I began, “I don’t want to concern you unduly, but...there may have been more to your father’s death than meets the eye.”
She shot me a bewildered look. “What?”
I gave her the gist of the article Tally had recounted to me. When I mentioned the housekeeper’s claim of overhearing an argument and then witnessing a woman flee the scene, apprehension clouded her eyes.
“It may only be a coincidence,” I added hastily. “And remember, the article was written last May and at that time there was no proof that it was anything other than accidental but...”
“You don’t think it was,” she threw in.
“I don’t know. I plan to check with the sheriff’s department and see if there are any new developments, but it’s apparent to me from the little we’ve heard, that as far as the mine re-opening, your father was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.”
“We know Jesse hated him,” Audrey said slowly. “But why would she...?”
“Tell me something,” I said, patting the perspiration from my forehead, “who else besides Dr. Orcutt could have had access to your telephone number?”
That made her mouth sag open, but the sound of a vehicle roaring up the hill drew our attention to a snazzy teal-blue Suburban rounding the corner into view. We got to our feet just as it screeched to a halt in front of us.
Engine still idling noisily, the driver, an anonymous silhouette behind tinted windows, made no move to get out. Instead, he appeared to be studying us intently while we stood baking in the sun. The beginning of a heat headache drummed at my temples and I bristled with impatience. What on earth was he waiting for? Were there two other strangers somewhere in town waiting to be picked up?
I nodded a curt greeting and reached for my suitcase. That got things moving. The engine stopped and the door flew open. A chunky, pony-tailed man clad in soiled tan slacks and an over-sized shirt slid to the ground. He took a final drag from his cigarette and flicked it aside. “Sorry, I’m late,” he offered contritely, smoothing his thin mustache with one finger. “I got held up.” With no further explanation, he scooped our luggage from the sidewalk and began to pile it in the back of the truck.
I kept my camera case with me and when he’d finished and slammed the rear compartment shut, he rushed back and opened the side door for us. “So, ah, which one of you is Miss Morgan?”
“I am,” she replied wearily, climbing inside. “This is my friend Kendall.”
“Danny Morrison,” he answered with a deferential bob of his head. “But everybody calls me D.J.”
As he closed the door behind me, Audrey wrinkled her nose and pinched it shut to indicate her distaste for the stench that permeated the interior. I nodded my agreement. It smelled like stale cigarette smoke and I hoped he wasn’t planning to light up again. My asthma had improved leaps and bounds since my arrival in Arizona, but smoke could still send me into coughing spasms.
Back in the driver’s seat once more, he re-started the engine and headed downhill. Thankfully, he didn’t reach for the pack of cigarettes I’d seen outlined in his shirt pocket, so I settled back and let the air-conditioned breeze flow over me.
In the clear light of day, we got a much better look at Audrey’s new inheritance, and it was obvious by her disillusioned expression that she was less than impressed as we drove though the dilapidated business district.
Personally, I found the place rather charming. The weathered brick buildings with their turn-of-the-century facades exhibited an air of faded elegance. But then, I didn’t have to think about what it would cost to refurbish them.
As we wound our way up
the hill, it was heartening to see a well-tended house here and there nestled among the crumbling shells of once-proud dwellings perched haphazardly on the terraced slopes. I gathered from the profusion of television antennas crisscrossing the roofs that cable had not yet come to this isolated town.
“Is there ever a rush hour around here?” I asked, making eye contact with our driver in the rear-view mirror.
He stared blankly for a second and then grinned. “Not hardly. It’s pretty dead. A lot of people drive over to Bisbee and Sierra Vista and even up to Tucson for work now, so there’s actually more traffic on weekends.”
“So, you’ve lived here quite a while? I asked.
“About a year.”
“What brought you to Morgan’s Folly?”
“Oh, I dunno. This ‘n’ that. I was tired of the rat race and looking for someplace quieter.” He paused, braking to avoid a rabbit bounding across the road and concluded, “Guess I found it.”
“How far is the house?” Audrey inquired, stifling a yawn.
“A mile or so.” He stretched to make eye contact with her. “Will you be staying here permanently, Miss...Morgan?”
His subtle hesitation made me wonder if he, too, doubted her claim as heir to the Morgan throne.
“I don’t really know yet.” With that, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest.
I inched forward. “So, D.J., Dr. Orcutt tells me you’re employed as a handyman at the house?”
His sharp laugh held a trace of bitterness. “I do a lot more than that. You might say I’m one of them jack-of-all trades.”
“Really. How so?”
“I keep up the grounds, help Marta when she needs it and I maintain all the cars. When I’m not doing that and a hundred other things, I work part-time as a watchman over at the mine property.”
I said, “Sounds like you keep pretty busy. And you’ve been at the house, how long?”
“Dunno. Eight, nine months.”
“I see. So that means that you were there when Grady Morgan had his accident.”
Even though his eyes were partially obscured behind the gray photo chromic lenses of his glasses, his expression turned wary. “I was away when he fell. When I got back later that night, the sheriff was already there.”
Audrey sat up, her expression sharpening with interest. “What do you mean when you got back? Do you live at the house?”
“Not exactly. I stay in the cottage down the hill from the main house. Look up there,” he interrupted himself, pointing, “that’s the Morgan place.”
Craning my neck forward, I caught my breath in wonder. Both Whitey and Dr. Orcutt had referred to it as the ‘big house’ and they weren’t kidding. Palatial would have been more appropriate. Pretentious, certainly.
The three-story, brick house was Victorian in every sense of the word. The steeply gabled roofs, high arched windows and ornate cupola crowning a round tower gave the place a brooding, almost gothic atmosphere. It was a perfect setting for a mystery, I thought, marveling at the sprawl of an additional, more modern wing that seemed strangely at odds with the older main structure. It presented an extraordinary picture, a monument to the past, dominating the hillside and holding court over the tiny town tucked in the valley below.
Audrey gawked. “What a weird-looking house. There must be a hundred rooms.”
I glanced back at D.J. and was surprised to find him watching Audrey in the rear-view mirror. There was an intense light in his eyes that vanished when his gaze slid to mine. “Hey. You know the old adage,” he said, giving me a wink. “If you got it, flaunt it.”
He seemed to thoroughly enjoy his little joke, but I could have sworn I detected just a hint of envy in his high-pitched laugh. Glancing at the house again, it was easy to see why. A man in his position, even if he worked a lifetime, would have a difficult time ever attaining such a prize. And it had come to Audrey simply by virtue of birth.
“So, how many rooms are there?” I asked D.J. as he downshifted on the steep grade.
“Twenty-six to be exact. I heard the original house is over a hundred years old and the rest of it was kind of added on piecemeal over the years.”
As we passed through a wrought iron gate blanketed by thick vines, I noticed him stiffen. “Uh oh. I wonder what’s hit the fan now?” he mused softly, pointing ahead.
There were two vehicles parked in the curved driveway. The first was a spanking new green and bronze pick-up, doors standing wide open, and the second was a county sheriff’s patrol car.
I perked up immediately. “What’s going on?”
“Maybe Marta finally killed Jesse,” he chuckled, braking at the foot of a magnificent set of stone steps that climbed steeply to a spacious screened-in porch, flanked on each side by ornate latticework entwined with pink and white roses.
On closer inspection, I decided the architects had done a rather admirable job of connecting the old Victorian to its more contemporary counterpart by way of a delicate archway that spanned a narrow drive leading to an enclosed garage behind the house.
“Jesse’s here?” Audrey asked, grimacing.
“Yeah. I’ve been helping her and Haston move most of their stuff out this morning. I think she was hoping to be gone by the time you got here,” he said with a look of sly amusement. He shut off the engine as we pushed the doors open and stepped out.
“And speak of the devil,” I murmured, nodding towards an open doorway just as Jesse appeared, her arms loaded with boxes filled to overflowing. When she spotted us, she flung her cargo into the front seat, then swung around, a murderous look blazing in her blood-shot eyes. “You little bitch!” she snarled at Audrey. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve calling in the middle of the night and ordering us out without so much as a by your leave.”
Audrey’s mouth gaped open. “I didn’t...”
“Don’t bother denying it.” She cast a furtive look at the old house, growling, “I don’t give a good goddamn anyway. This place gives me the creeps.”
“Wait a minute,” Audrey cried, “I...I never called you.”
Jesse leveled a contemptuous look at her before clambering ungracefully into the truck. She slammed the door, gunned the engine and shouted a final warning out the window. “If you try screwing us over like that pig-headed old man of yours, you’re gonna regret it.”
She peeled out in a plume of blue tire smoke and got only a few yards before she realized the passenger door was open. Practically standing the truck on its grill, she squealed to a stop, stretched to close the door, then shot forward, vanishing through the gate.
From childhood, I’d been accused of possessing my grandmother’s red-hot Irish temperament, but my tantrums paled in comparison to Jesse’s. Audrey was definitely going to have her hands full. Sober, the woman seemed just as nasty as she’d been drunk. Could she have been blitzed enough to dream up a call from Audrey? If not, someone had played a heartless joke on her. And it had to be someone who would benefit from renewed friction between the two heirs. “Well,” I ventured, breaking the silence “at least she doesn’t think you’re an imposter today.”
“No,” Audrey answered, thoughtfully. “Today, I’m just a bitch.”
“That’s probably a step up in her book.”
“What in the world was she talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
She shook her head. “So much for Dr. Orcutt’s suggestion that I try to get along. How? She’s...she’s impossible!”
“Impossible?” echoed an accented voice from behind. “Impossible is a kind word for that vile creature.”
We turned to see a short, stocky Hispanic woman of perhaps sixty, standing in the doorway Jesse had exited only moments before. Uncharitably, I thought she was one of the homeliest people I’d ever seen. Her full lips were turned down at the corners and the thick glasses resting atop her blunt nose magnified the scornful gleam in her black eyes. “We can all give thanks to the Virgin Mary that she is gone,” the woman continued
, moving closer and peering into Audrey’s face.
Flinching under the woman’s intense scrutiny, she asked, “Are you Marta?”
She grunted affirmatively and inclined her head in my direction. “Who is that?”
“Kendall O’Dell,” Audrey answered. “She’ll be staying here with me for a while.”
Marta returned her attention to Audrey. “Humph! Jesse Pickrell’s eyes must be many times worse than mine. How can she not see that you have the Morgan blood running in your veins?”
She cupped Audrey’s face in one hand, turning it right and then left. “You have the same eyebrows, the same hair. I will show you pictures.” She started for the door, then turned back to beckon Audrey. “Come into the house. And you too,” she tacked on, pointing a finger at me before directing her gaze at D.J, who’d been lounging near the car looking amused. “Put the bags in the kitchen until we decide where everyone will sleep.”
He saluted her, squashed his cigarette on the pavement and moved to the rear of the Suburban.
I smiled to myself. It was evident that Marta Nuñez was accustomed to ruling the roost and I could understand why she and Jesse’s personalities clashed.
Having finally reached the end of our journey, I was brimming with nervous energy as I followed Audrey and Marta into a small flag-stoned entryway and then along a narrow hall that opened into a spacious living room decorated in rough-hewn southwestern style furniture.
As much as I wanted to hear what Marta had to say, I was curious to find out why someone from the sheriff’s department was here. I also needed to check in with Tugg and I was anxious to get back downtown to the Muleskinner to get my car and have another chat with Whitey.
I couldn’t be in four places at once I consoled myself, so I’d have to take one step at a time.
“See?” the housekeeper proclaimed, shoving a framed portrait in front of Audrey. “My eyes are not so good anymore but the face is the same, no?”