Body in the Bookcase ff-9

by Katherine Hall Page

  It wasn’t hard to spot Julian’s room. The bed was hung with deep crimson silk damask draperies, neatly tied to each post with gold tassels.

  A kilim carpet covered the uneven floorboards.

  Dunster Weald might have started out life as a farmhouse, but it was a manor house now. Unlike the other rooms, this one had little furniture.

  Beside the bed was a large round table covered with stacks of books, catalogs, a framed picture of Stephanie as a little girl, a lamp, and a phone.

  A banjo wall clock eliminated the need for a Westclox. Julian must have an internal alarm, like Napoleon, waking himself up at the self-appointed hour each day, or night. An armoire, a comfortable-looking chaise, and two ladderback chairs, one by each window, completed the inventory.

  Searching the pile next to the bed was impossible without toppling everything over, yet there didn’t seem to be any personal correspondence or a receipt book of any kind. Faith turned her attention to the armoire. It had been fitted out with drawers on one side, the other with a small television, VCR, and stereo. So Julian had a weakness for Leno or Letterman, besides Lowestoft.

  Julian Bullock was obsessively neat about his personal effects. Socks were sorted by color in ordered rows. Piles of crisply ironed pajamas from Brooks Brothers, and boxers from the same source, filled two more drawers. Another held sweaters, folded so expertly that Julian could always get a job at the Gap if this antiques thing didn’t work out. The only scrap of paper Faith found was a price tag on a yet-unworn cardigan.

  The drawer beneath the entertainment system held a few tapes— Chariots of Fire, multiple Mer-chant Ivorys, and one lone Mel Brooks— The Twelve Chairs. The closet held clothes. Period. No safe. Not even a shoe box. Julian’s footwear, in trees, was lined up on a shelf beneath a row of sports and suit jackets. A hatbox revealed—a hat.

  Discouraged, she returned to the kitchen to finish cleaning the oven, first checking the pantry.

  Julian didn’t have any canisters. Or much food of any kind, except packages of Pepperidge Farm cookies, tea, and a shelf stacked with canned soups. The few drawers and cupboards, as well as the Hoosier kitchen, were a bust also.

  As she scrubbed at the grime, trying not to in-hale the noxious fumes, she tried to think what to do next. She’d been so sure she could find some sort of evidence that would link the two men, which she’d present to John Dunne, leaving the police to do the rest. Everything had been falling into place, and now it was all falling apart. She’d identified James Green and his prints had matched the ones in both the Fairchild and Winslow houses. Then he disappeared. He could be out of the country, too, by now, like Gloria.

  Gloria Farnum. Why would she go to Canada if she wasn’t guilty? Was it possible that she was the person who entered the antiques mart, flashed the lights to pinpoint the quarry, then lunged with deadly accuracy? Gloria didn’t seem to possess that much energy, or acumen; yet, appearances were so often misleading. Look at Julian.

  Faith was back to him. It felt right and she had learned to trust her snap judgments most of all.

  The oven sparkled and Faith stuffed the paper towels, sponges, rubber gloves, and empty oven cleaner can into a trash bag she’d brought along for the purpose. It was white, not green. She was avoiding those particular Hefty bags for the moment. Body bags were green, too.

  The rain had stopped and there were puddles in the back of the house on the flagstone walk.

  Fragrant deep pink and white peonies lined the walk, the blossoms bowed low by the storm.

  She’d reset the alarm and locked the door behind her. She’d leave the trash bag in the barn and that way she’d know where to leave the trash from tomorrow night, as well. There was a small shed attached to the large post-and-beam barn and it occurred to Faith that Julian might have another office out there—or store his more sensitive records in the hayloft or one of the horse stalls.

  Why hadn’t she thought of this before? The barn was a much better hiding place than the house.

  Her heart beat a little faster and she quickened her steps. There was still a chance that she’d be able to prove her hunch.

  Stuffing the bag in one of the trash cans just inside the door, Faith switched on the light. A ladder reached to the loft, which was filled with hay.

  For the picturesque horses, she presumed. An open door led into the shed. It housed a complete workshop, much sawdust, and piles of wood. Julian the handyman, the restorer, the faker? Back in the main part of the barn, the stalls were filled with strange creatures—the quilt-covered articles described by Courtney. Faith picked up the edge of the first one. It proved to be two layers of mover’s quilts and indeed very ratty. She pulled them up and a lovely tilt-top table with a piecrust edge came to light. Soon she’d exposed all sorts of pieces—a bedroom set of painted cottage furniture, a Shaker sewing cabinet, a carved pine blanket chest, and an enormous maple secretary.

  The dim light and clouds of dust from the hay added to the sensation that she had stepped into another world, Pandora’s world, where the lifting of a lid, or the opening of a drawer, might release all manner of ills. She found herself moving slowly, carefully.

  There were several more stalls. In the one nearest the workshop, a number of items, most the same size, stood—queer shapes under wraps. She started at the rear, crouching low, looking underneath each cover. It was a set of lyre-backed dining room chairs. But the front item was long and low. She tugged gingerly at the quilt tucked over and around it. A corner was revealed. She fell back on her heels and pulled furiously at the rest of the covering, throwing it to one side. It was a drawer, a sideboard drawer.

  Her sideboard drawer.

  She didn’t need any further documentation. Julian Bullock was guilty. Guilty of receiving stolen goods—arranging for goods to be stolen no doubt—and guilty of murder. She had him. She had him at last!

  “Might one inquire as to the nature of your business here?” Julian’s menacing voice had shed every vestige of charm.

  Ten

  “Everyone, including the police, knows exactly where I am,” Faith lied brazenly.

  “How nice for you,” Julian commented sarcastically, then stooped down to look at the drawer.

  “Where did this come from?”

  It was too much. All the pent-up fury and frustration that had been mounting for three weeks—since Faith walked into Sarah Winslow’s book-lined room—erupted.

  “You know damn well where it came from! My house! It’s over, Julian! You may have been able to shut up George—and probably Gloria—but you’re not going to stop me!” She dashed out the door, ignoring the startled look on his face, and reached her car—just as he did. He grabbed her arm—hard.

  “Now just wait a minute. What the hell are you talking about? Are you insane?”

  He was good, very good, although there was more Southie than Sussex in his accent now.

  Faith started screaming, “Let me go, you bas-tard!” She tried to twist out of his strong grip, beating at him with her fist, her heavy purse lying useless on the ground, where it had fallen when he’d spun her around.

  “How can I make you believe me!” he cried.

  “I’m not a murderer!”

  “And Sarah, Sarah Winslow!” Faith didn’t pause in her tirade or struggle to break free. “You killed her, too! Not in cold blood, but it amounted to the same thing. Your goons scared her to death!”

  “I don’t know anyone named Sarah Winslow—and I don’t have any ‘goons.’ ”

  “But you admit you knew George Stackpole.

  Knew him very well!”

  At this, Julian looked incredibly weary, but he did not relax his hold on Faith.

  “I need a drink and so do you. We’re going to go inside, have one, maybe two, and talk. If you still want to call the police after that, you may be my guest.”

  Murderers didn’t behave this way, offering hospitality and a chat. Faith looked Julian in the eye. Could she have been wrong? He had seemed genuine
ly amazed at finding the drawer in the barn. If he was going to bluff his way out, he’d have thought of something better to say—or do, like burning it immediately. She might be making a mistake she’d regret for the rest of her life—a long one, she hoped—yet the desire to hear what he had to reveal was too strong. It was one more mover’s quilt to lift—a colossal one.

  “Okay. Let’s go inside, but don’t forget, people know where I am.”

  An hour later, Faith stood up. They had been sitting in the library. “I have to get my kids.” Julian nodded. He was behind his desk, leaning back in his chair, still nursing the stiff scotch he’d poured himself after downing a first quickly.

  “I really don’t know why I should trust you,” Faith said, pausing at the door to the hall.

  “You don’t have any choice,” Julian replied, lifting his glass.

  The luck of the Bullocks, or Cabot Bullocks, Courtney would have insisted, held. Friday was as beautiful as a day in June, which it was. The guests were invited for seven and the evening air at Dunster Weald was balmy, filled with the scent of wisteria. Faith had hung Japanese lanterns in the trees, and as twilight fell, their glow deepened in the shadows. She’d covered the table on the terrace with a white cloth, skirting the damask with drapery sheers gathered like a bride’s bouf-fant gown. They’d pass the hot hors d’oeuvres, setting the cold ones and a raw bar on the table.

  The only flowers were masses of white roses in some of Julian’s silver wine coolers and garlands of baby’s breath looped about the skirting.

  “A champagne crowd for sure,” Scott reported, returning for another tray of flutes filled with Dom Pérignon. “Her old man is knocking back the stuff like it’s water. I guess he’s trying to forget how much this shindig is costing him.”

  While they were setting up earlier in the afternoon, Faith had taken Scott aside for a quiet moment. They’d talked on the phone since Tuesday night, but hadn’t seen each other, and she needed to chase away the ghosts, mainly one ghost, before she could throw herself into the work ahead.

  Thinking about Tuesday night did not exactly put her in a party mood—and she was keyed up to start with anyway after talking with Julian the day before. Scott seemed to have put it all behind him and mostly expressed relief that the police were not interested in him as a suspect. Dressed in a white shirt, slim black pants, and black tuxedo tie—all of which suited him perfectly—Scott was ready for the night’s work. He loved doing parties like this, he’d often told Faith. They were a lot of laughs—and great leftovers. Tonight, he’d finally meet Stephanie, after a year of hearing Faith’s and Niki’s stories about the spoiled young woman.

  Wednesday morning, Faith had called another young woman—Tricia Phelan—prepared for her justifiable anger. Borrowing one’s husband for questionable deeds and placing him at the scene of a murder could put a strain on any friendship.

  But Tricia was cool. Like Tom, she was so relieved that her spouse was all right, it hadn’t occurred to her to be angry—at anyone. Or at least not yet.

  Still, Faith felt guilty, hence the call. “Next time, ask me and leave Scott out of it” was Tricia’s only caveat. “I never even got a detention in high school.”

  Tricia came in with an empty tray. “Nobody ate lunch today. These were gone before I could even get to everyone.” The tray had held small crisp zucchini fritters spread with sour cream and salsa (see recipe on page 339). Faith had another ready, these with sour cream, smoked salmon, and a twist of fresh coriander. She handed it to Tricia and got a tray of phyllo triangles filled with ri-cotta and prosciutto for Scott. Niki was basting the duck. The timbales of wild rice only needed warming and the salads were done. They were using Julian’s now spotless oven to bake the chèvre, but if they put them in now, they’d end up with puddles of goat cheese on incinerated baguette rounds. Faith wandered into the dining room for another last check on the table. Courtney had come out early in the morning to arrange the cloth, letting the gray silk fall to the floor in soft folds. Faith had placed three low floral arrangements and countless votive candles down the center of the table, so conversation would not be impeded. It was so disconcerting to crane one’s neck to the side in order to speak to the person across the table hidden behind an elaborate bunch of flowers. She’d massed parrot tulips, pale apricot and celadon green; peach-colored ranunculus; pale Ambience roses; white anemones; and tiny white hydrangea in shiny brass containers—from Pier 1. The bowls shone like the gold embroidered stars in the cloth. No strong fragrances to detract from the food, only beauty for the eye. Each napkin held one perfect white spray of sweet peas. It was a wedding, after all. As per Courtney’s suggestion, Faith had spread vases of more parrot tulips in a wide palette of colors throughout the rest of the ground floor of the house.

  Returning to the kitchen, Faith announced to Niki, “We’ll serve in fifteen minutes.”

  “Isn’t that a little early?” Niki asked.

  “No, Stephanie wants her beauty sleep, and my instructions were to have dinner on the table no later than eight-thirty.” New Yorkers would just be starting to think about eating at this time. For Faith, New England continued to be a strange and mysterious land.

  As she piped thin concentric circles of crème fraîche on the surface of the avocado bisque, she willed herself not to think about yesterday’s conversation with Julian, willed herself not to think about the sideboard drawer in the barn—or a multitude of other images. She had indeed opened up Pandora’s box. She drew a sharp knife through the circles of cream, creating a web. Creating a web. That’s exactly what she was doing, and please, God, let it work.

  “Stephanie wants to know if everything is ready.” Binky Wentworth’s deep voice startled Faith and one of the webs now looked like the work of a spider on acid. She’d have to prepare another serving.

  “Yes, give me five minutes to set these on the table. I know she wanted to announce dinner herself.”

  He nodded and went back outside. Faith pulled herself together, shuddering. She absolutely would not think about anything else except the rehearsal dinner until it was over. Over.

  Let it be over.

  She placed a nasturtium blossom in the middle of each bowl of soup. Niki reached for the tray and Faith jumped. “Everything’s going perfectly.

  Don’t worry. I’ve never seen you this nervous. Believe me, the Bullocks are not worth it!” Niki said.

  Dinner was announced, and as soon as the guests moved into the dining room, Faith started to clear away the hors d’oeuvres with Niki. There was no way to see into the dining room from the kitchen, but as they cleaned, they could glimpse the wedding party through the windows.

  “They never got zits in high school, those kind of girls,” Niki muttered. “It’s in the genes. Like long legs, a good backhand, and enough brains to hide them most of the time.”

  “They do look beautiful, though,” Faith said.

  “The Bridesmaids, isn’t that the title of a novel?” Tonight, they weren’t in the honey-colored slip dresses they’d wear tomorrow. They were in their own deceptively simple linen sheaths, pearls encircling their graceful necks, diamond studs sparkling on their earlobes. No double or triple piercing, no nose or lip rings. No body mutilation of any kind. Some spark of rebellion would have been welcome. Orange hair, a Jean Paul Gaultier outfit. Maybe there was a tiny rose tattoo under one of those Agnès B.s.

  Dinner parties were like launching ships. You smashed the bottle across the bow and the well-constructed craft slipped down the ramp and off to sea, afloat on good food, excellent wines, and witty conversation. Faith had seen to two out of three, and from the look of it, the guests were supplying the third. At least they were laughing.

  “She probably doesn’t want to put on an ounce before tomorrow or her dress won’t fit. I would have pegged her as the ‘finger down the throat’

  type, but I may be wrong,” Scott commented as he entered the kitchen with Stephanie’s almost untouched main course.

  �
�Too icky,” Niki said wryly. “She’s worried about her dress. Faith’s seen it, and an extra mil-limeter to the hips will throw the whole thing off.

  Ten bucks says she eats dessert, though. She’s big on sweets. Daddy owes us a lot of money for all the cookies she’s filched over the last year.” Later, when Stephanie’s salad plate came back empty, Scott took the bet. “She’ll be full now.” Faith listened to her crew’s banter and felt completely isolated. The evening was taking on dreamlike qualities and the hours were passing slowly. Dessert would be served in the dining room, then coffee, small pastries, chocolates, and liqueurs in the library. It was warm enough to go outside, but mosquitoes, already ferocious, had ruled out this romantic notion.

  Niki had prepared the dessert and it was a triumph—tiny wild strawberries, fraises de bois, layered with praline butter cream and yellow génoise in a wafer-thin dark chocolate tulip on a bed of caramelized spun sugar. Each dessert was capped by a chocolate medallion on which Niki had piped the bride’s and groom’s initials and the date.

  Stephanie practically licked her plate clean.

  Scott presented it to Niki with a bow and handed her a ten-dollar bill.

  By midnight, the last Jaguars and Jeep Chero-kees had driven off and only the family remained.

  “Marvelous party,” Courtney enthused in her flat upper-class drawl—the same voice reserved for “Nice day.” She stood in the kitchen doorway.

  “Thank you—and tomorrow will be its equal,” Faith promised.

  “I should certainly hope so.” Stephanie had come up behind her mother. “Binky and I are absolutely exhausted. We’re leaving.”

  No “You must be tired, too,” “Good-bye,” or—heavens above—“Thank you” to the help. Stephanie left to spend her last night as Miss Bullock in the arms of Morpheus—and Binky, too, if she didn’t develop a headache between Concord and Cambridge.