Body in the Bookcase ff-9

by Katherine Hall Page

  She thought about calling Nan Howell to find out more about Gloria. Nan would probably know about George by now—the world of antiques dealers was very small—and she also might have caught it on the news. The news! The police had assured her that neither her name nor Scott’s would be released, but she’d better give her in-laws a much-abbreviated version just in case. She jotted down a reminder. Marian would be sure to pick up on the name—the Old Oaken Bucket was pretty distinctive, and Faith couldn’t remember whether she’d mentioned George Stackpole’s name to Marian, as well.

  But who had killed him? Gloria couldn’t make very much selling her little trinkets. Why would she want to get rid of her means of support, unless she was due to come in to a whole lot of insurance money or George had a lot socked away, leaving Gloria sole beneficiary? But the moment the woman tried to claim it, she’d be arrested.

  Maybe he was cheating on her. A woman scorned? But George Stackpole struck Faith as someone who was extremely lucky to find even one woman who would put up with his tempera-ment—and appearance. The possibility of another in thrall to his charms seemed slim.

  Who else? Faith was pretty sure she knew—even with a cast of characters who offered so many alternatives. She wasn’t ruling out Rhoda Dawson in all this. It might be a coincidence that James Green was from Revere and that’s where Ms. Dawson’s post office box was—or it might not.

  Nan with her clinking beads, Gloria in spandex, Rhoda in Joan Crawford shoulder pads. No, none of these women, nor Green, made as much sense as the man in the Savile Row suit. Julian Bullock. Father of the bride.

  Ben was at a friend’s house and Amy was happily banging pots and pans while Faith brought Niki up-to-date later that afternoon at work.

  “I can’t believe the things that happen to you. Does your mother know? Mine would have locked you in her attic by now.”

  The one thing Faith had not shared with Niki was her suspicion of Julian. Not yet. She needed to think about it herself some more. She decided to change the subject.

  “We only need Scott and Tricia as staff for the rehearsal dinner. The flowers will be ready in the morning and we can take everything out in the afternoon. Thank goodness Courtney wanted a

  ‘family feel’ to the evening—no menus. The calligrapher would have gone crazy.” It suddenly dawned on Faith that this was why Stephanie had fooled around with changing the rehearsal dinner so much. She couldn’t alter the reception menus, not after Courtney’s fancy calligrapher had hand-lettered them two months ago. The woman was in such demand that even Courtney Cabot Bullock had to bow to her schedule.

  “The lobster bisque would have been my choice, or your yummy wild mushroom con-sommé, but other than that, it’s a perfect menu,” Niki commented.

  It was perfect, Faith agreed. The guests would sip champagne and nibble their hors d’oeuvres on the terrace, weather permitting, or in Julian’s library if it didn’t. The formal dinner would begin with the cold avocado bisque, accompanied by caviar toasts, followed by a salad of field greens with warm rounds of Crottin de Chavignol chèvre, then Muscovy duck with onion confit, wild rice timbales, and steamed miniature vegetables in a beurre blanc. Stephanie had nixed fresh asparagus with hazelnut butter a few weeks ago after noticing how “gross my pee smelled” after consuming some for dinner one night. “I mean, I’m going to be married the next day. I don’t need any kind of nasty odors the night before!” Garlic was of course out from the beginning, and only when she tasted the sweet onion relish did she approve of that potential offender.

  Faith could visualize the whole evening. A night bathed in candlelight—so kind to everyone—but then, these were people who didn’t need it. Money might not buy happiness, but it did buy straight teeth, beautiful skin, contact lenses, great haircuts, and whatever cosmetic surgery one’s stage of life called for—a nose job in adolescence, tummy tuck and eye tucks later on.

  Her mind wandered back to Julian, as it had all afternoon. This was his world—and his livelihood. Protecting his assets and his reputation was a powerful motive.

  By the time she’d finished the puff pastry for the seafood napoleons that were Saturday’s first course, Faith had worked it all out. And it went something like this: Contrary to his denial of more than a passing acquaintance with Stackpole, Julian is, in fact, still buying the best of George’s goods, stolen or not. Faith’s mentions of George’s name and recovery of items, plus her proximity to Julian’s life have made him nervous. He decides it’s time to sever his ties with the picker. But George doesn’t agree. He’s been doing very well in the partnership. He tries to reassure Julian that he can provide some phony receipts and make the police happy. But Julian still wants out.

  George reminds him that it’s not going to be so easy to get rid of him. He knows Julian doesn’t want to jeopardize his standing—way on top of the pyramid. His connections to the rich and famous, to museums all over the world, his PBS

  commentaries will all go down the drain once George reveals that Julian has been part of a burglary ring for many years—and maybe knowingly selling fakes, as well. George himself, being at the bottom, has nothing to lose. Except his life.

  Faith pictured Julian at his gracious estate, contemplating his fate, contemplating the objects surrounding him, objects that, according to his daughter, he valued more than people. Perhaps not such a difficult choice. Get rid of George and Gloria and effectively erase that part of your life.

  It made perfect sense and it was the only theory that did. Nan had described George as “volatile.” Julian would be well aware of this and know the man wouldn’t hesitate for an instant before spreading the word about the high-and-mighty Mr. Bullock.

  “You have been standing in front of the refrigerator for about an hour,” Niki remarked, exaggerating. “Earth to Faith—what’s going on?”

  “Trying to sort this all out.” Faith scooped Amy up into the air. They had to get Ben soon. The toddler laughed delightedly.

  “That’s going to take more than staring at a Sub-Zero,” Niki said.

  “I know,” Faith agreed ruefully. “Believe me, I know.” It was going to take a plan. A very good plan.

  The police would never act on her conjectures.

  John Dunne habitually regarded her theories as far-fetched at best, even if the theories later proved correct. Somehow she had to search Bullock’s house—Dunster Weald. There had to be some kind of paperwork tying Julian to George: receipts, canceled checks. A massive partner’s desk sat in the library—a remnant of the time when Courtney and Julian conversed other than primarily through lawyers, Stephanie said when showing Faith through the house. In one of the desk drawers—maybe a hidden one—there had to be something. All she needed was time to look.

  Alone.

  By Thursday morning, Faith was ready. Granted, the scheme depended on things falling into place neatly, but it was time something did. On Thursdays, nursery school parents had the option of an extended day, and Faith often took it. Ben thought it was a great treat to eat lunch at school and play games all afternoon. He didn’t even balk at the rest time. His adored Miss Lora, that sweet siren, sang them to sleep. Amy’s morning day-care provider could sometimes be persuaded to keep her for the afternoon, and today was one of those days. Faith might finish at Dunster Weald in time to pick her daughter up, but she didn’t want to stop what she was doing to speed home, perhaps just missing the clue she was seeking.

  She felt better than she had in days. Things were falling into place, and last night when she turned the light off, she hadn’t even thought of George’s corpse, or anything else to do with the murder.

  There were any number of excuses that she could think of to be out in Concord the day before the rehearsal dinner, but she wanted the run of the place. The first step was to call there. On the fourth ring, Julian’s plummy voice announced,

  “So tiresome, I’m missing your call. Do leave word.” Faith didn’t.

  Stephanie, happily, was home.

 
“Nothing’s wrong, I hope?” she said crisply as soon as she heard Faith’s voice. Forget “Hello, how are you?” Miss Manners was not on Miss Bullock’s bookshelf.

  “Not yet, but I’m terribly concerned about the oven at your father’s house. I should have thought of it before.” Faith was prepared to de-base herself in any number of ways. “It must be cleaned before the dinner, and there won’t be time tomorrow.”

  “I hope you’re not suggesting I do it!” Stephanie said in horror.

  “No, of course not,” Faith reassured her. “I’ll do it myself, but it must be done or what’s been burned onto the oven walls will impart a distinct aroma to the duck, and I don’t even want to think what it will do to the chèvre for the salads.” Julian Bullock’s oven was filthy—and tiny.

  Faith was sure it had not been used since the divorce several years ago. It would stink if lighted and probably set off the smoke alarms. She’d be bringing a portable convection oven, but Stephanie didn’t need to know that.

  “I’ve called your father, but there’s no answer.”

  “Daddy went to an auction in Maine. We’d better hope there isn’t one he wants to go to on Saturday. Otherwise, I’ll be walking down the aisle alone. He wouldn’t think twice about skipping the wedding if he thought somebody else was going to get a stupid piece of furniture away from him.”

  “What can we do?” Faith asked plaintively.

  “You’ll have to come in here and get the key—and the alarm code. Can’t you take that girl who works with you along to do the scrubbing?” Vowing never to reveal Cinderella’s stepsister’s suggestion to Niki, Faith replied, “She’s taking a course in Cambridge and isn’t free.”

  “Whatever.” Stephanie was ready to hang up.

  “You’d better come soon. I have to go over to Mummy’s. She picked up some more bathing suits for the honeymoon. In fact, why don’t you go straight there? Then you can see them, too, and you won’t hold me up.”

  Faith had very little interest in Stephanie’s honeymoon garb. The blissful couple intended to cruise the coast of Turkey—“everybody does Greece”—on a seventy-foot yacht complete with crew of six to see to their every whim. But she didn’t care where she picked up the key—just so she got it.

  “Fine, see you at your mother’s.”

  Courtney Cabot Bullock had returned to her roots on Beacon Hill, presently living on Chestnut Street, a cobblestone’s throw away from her childhood home. The first meeting about the wedding had been at the town house and it took Faith no time to get there. The problem was parking. She finally circled around to the Boston Common garage, left the car, and walked rapidly down the brick sidewalks on Charles Street to Chestnut.

  A servant showed Faith into Courtney’s office.

  She was sitting at a small Victorian ladies’ desk placed squarely in the center of the bow window, some of the panes amethyst, that overlooked the street. Unlike Julian’s house, the room was not crowded with furniture, but each piece was perfect. The walls had been painted a deep apricot and the trim glossy white. Faith recognized a Childe Hassam over the small marble fireplace.

  She was sure it wasn’t a reproduction.

  “Stephanie’s upstairs trying a few things on,” Courtney said. “I’m grateful you thought of the oven before it was too late.” The criticism implied—You should have thought of this earlier—was scarcely veiled.

  “I am, too. We would have worked something out tomorrow, but it would have rushed other things.”

  They spent a few minutes talking about the flowers. Faith was anxious to be on her way, but Courtney was in a chatty mood.

  “A daughter’s wedding. Every mother dreams of the day, plans for it. I may not have a chance to speak to you after it’s over.” No more jobs here, Faith thought. The door would be closing. “But you’ve done a superb job. Stephanie’s nuptials will be everything I’ve hoped and more. I’ve been telling all my friends, and you must be sure to mail me plenty of cards.” Maybe not. This was a pleasant surprise. “You’ve handled things so discreetly, too. I know my ex has been a bit of a bore about the money.” Any more scorn in her voice and there would have been spontaneous combustion.

  What about Stephanie’s dreams? Faith thought fleetingly, but then mother and daughter were so in sync, one pronoun could serve for both.

  “Thank you, I’m glad you’ve been pleased.” She decided to avoid any mention of Julian. “It’s going to be wonderful.”

  “Well, of course it is!” Stephanie walked into the room wearing two wisps of shocking pink fabric that Faith knew for sure cost more than the average family of four’s food bill for a week. She pirouetted. “Like it?”

  “Divine—and better than the other one, I think.

  Navy blue is so neither here nor there.” This was all getting to be a bit much, and just as Faith was trying to think of a way to ask for the key and alarm code to a house worth millions, Stephanie walked over to her mother’s desk and picked up an envelope. She flipped her hair back over her shoulders.

  “This opens the kitchen door and the alarm keypad is in the first closet.” Faith had seen it.

  “Punch in the code, and when you leave, do the same thing, but don’t do it until you’re absolutely sure you’re leaving. I set it off all the time, and Daddy’s tired of paying the false-alarm fines to the police.”

  “It won’t take long. I use an industrial-strength cleaner.”

  “You know the trash is out in the barn, right?

  There are some old rags, too, if you need more,” Courtney said, “but don’t touch anything that looks like a mover’s quilt. Julian hides his best pieces out there under the rattiest ones until he’s ready to sell to some poor unsuspecting soul. Waits for the value to go up.”

  Or the piece to cool off, Faith thought as she walked back to the parking garage.

  It took only thirty minutes to get out to Concord from Boston, since it wasn’t rush hour. Faith put on a Mary Chapin Carpenter tape and consciously willed herself to relax. Stephanie and Binky were both getting massages Saturday morning to ease any prematrimonial stress. Faith wouldn’t mind someone working on the knots in the back of her neck that had taken up permanent residence since she’d found Sarah Winslow’s body. Unlike that morning, today was gray and the sky threatened rain. She pulled into the curved drive to Dunster Weald. The Bullocks had never even considered an outdoor wedding, although Julian’s house was made for one. Depend on meteorology? Absurd. Besides, Binky’s family had the perfect spot, with a more dramatic view than horses and trees, according to Stephanie.

  Nature girl, she was not, unless the nature included someone to bring her a strawberry daiquiri or wrap her in seaweed. Faith would have opted for Concord, though. The drive up to the house was lined with copper beeches, planted as a gift for future generations by someone who saw them only in his mind’s eye. The formal English garden, white wisteria cascading from a long trellis in the center, would have been perfect for the ceremony. But then, Faith thought as she parked the car and scooted into the house, clutch-ing her cleaning supplies, it might have rained.

  Like now.

  She found the alarm and punched the code in.

  The high-pitched signal stopped. Quickly, she preheated the oven, turned it off, and coated it with the cleaner, leaving it to do its magic. She couldn’t not clean the oven now that she was here. Courtney might check up on the quality of the job. Not Stephanie. Too, too disgusting—

  opening the door, looking in.

  Faith stripped off her gloves, washed her hands, and set off down the hallway to the library at the far end of the house. Her footsteps were soundless on the series of Oriental runners that lay on the floor. Outside, the pelting rain rattled the windows. She turned on a switch by the library door and the room was flooded with soft light.

  Forty minutes later, she was forced to admit defeat. She’d been through every ledger—Julian was doing extremely well, much better than his ex-wife thought—and had carefully gone through al
l the correspondence she could find.

  One drawer held stacks of elegant writing paper, all engraved with the name Dunster Weald, the address, and a small crest. Julian’s old neighborhood in Southie didn’t run to logos of this sort—

  brand names were the rule of thumb—and Faith wondered idly whose escutcheon Julian had pinched. Besides the stationery, there were Mont Blanc pens, ink bottles, even some lowly paper clips and a stapler, but not a word about George, to George, or from George. She’d pushed and pulled at the fixed portions of the desk, but if there was a secret drawer, it would remain so. Julian either did not use a computer or kept it else-where. She suspected the former. The desk hadn’t yielded any disks. There was a fax and answering machine behind a row of faux books on one of the shelves, however, a concession to this century.

  Faith tapped at the other rows, but they were all the leather-bound volumes they appeared to be. Could Julian have another workplace? Yet, Stephanie had referred to the library as “Daddy’s office.” It was Courtney who termed it the library when they were discussing where to serve.

  Daddy might keep records, especially records he wasn’t eager to share, in other places. Faith looked behind the prints and paintings for a wall safe—although she would have been hard put to crack it if she found one, possessing skills with neither tumblers nor dynamite.

  She was soon forced to concede that if this room held any secrets, it wasn’t going to yield them to her. She turned off the lights and directed her attention to the rest of the downstairs rooms.

  After a cursory glance in each, Faith ruled them out. They weren’t rooms Julian used; they were showrooms. He wouldn’t keep documents, particularly incriminating ones, in furniture that he was trying to sell, discriminating buyers pulling drawers open, lifting lids. She was happy to see a new table in place in the dining room. It was the same size as the one Julian had sold to the Averys, although not so stunning. She also paused a moment in appreciation at what she already thought of as “their sideboard.”

  Moving upstairs, she carefully looked in each bedroom, every closet, even peering into the hampers in the baths. Some of the rooms were being used for storage, and it was hard to move about among the chests, tables, and chairs. She opened drawers, wardrobes, and cupboards, finding nothing more than creased tissue paper, empty hangers, and dust. None of the rooms contained file cabinets, not even old wooden ones.