by JoeAnn Hart
“Police?” Gerard struggled to manage his emotions, deepening his voice, but it still came out like a squeak. “Eden Rock here. We have. . .goats. Out on the terrace. No, real animals. I don’t know. Hurry.”
Chapter Nine
The Follow-Through
GERARD KNEW Gwen Rundlett to be a fair woman. Fair of skin, fair of temperament, fair of hair. Even now, as she patiently explained to Officer Dyer, an unmoving block of a man, how it happened that her husband had gouged Mr. Farnsworth in the thigh with a fork, she was fair to a fault. Alex Bruner sat on the other side of her, taking notes as directed by his wife. Ellen Bruner had performed the same service for Roger Rundlett and was now sitting with him outside on the low fieldstone wall, where the goats had so recently frolicked. Officer Dyer had had no success with Mr. Rundlett, who’d kept his arms folded and his mouth shut. All he would say was that if they wanted to arrest him, then they should get on with it.
Gerard, a rictus smile frozen on his face, wiped his forehead with a mauve linen napkin left in a crumple, like a rose. The dining room was littered with such fallen blooms—on the tables, on the chairs, on the floor, maybe even in the chandelier. The staff hurried around like hummingbirds, collecting untouched dinners and full bottles of wine from abandoned tables.
“Tell your staff not to disturb the crime scene, sir,” Officer Dyer said, his mouth seeming to creak as he spoke. “We still haven’t recovered the weapon.”
Crime scene! Weapon! Gerard prayed that Mrs. Rundlett stop being so determinedly fair and start lying like a rug. He and everyone at the Club knew bad blood existed between the Rundletts and Farnsworths over the broken engagement, but the outside world had to see the forking as an accident. His job would not survive another bout of bad press.
“It seems to me that he merely neglected to release the fork when we got up from the table,” Mrs. Rundlett said, turning the simple gold bracelet on her wrist around and around, trying to unscrew her hand. “We had to go see the goats, after all. Goats out on the terrace! There they were, right out of a picture book, two of the sweetest things, not smelling at all, if you can believe that, standing on the wall and eating the geraniums. My favorite-color flower, that salmony pink, and I was so afraid they might tip the urns over and break them. They’re original to the house, and I just don’t see how the House and Grounds Committee would ever be able to replace them.”
“If he forgot to release the fork, then where is it?” Officer Dyer leaned toward her from his ankles.
“Maybe the goats ate it!” said Gwen, finally letting go of her bracelet. “I understand they eat anything.”
Alex Bruner smiled broadly at the officer.
“Can you tell me what happened, ma’am?” said Officer Dyer. “After you went out to the patio.”
“Terrace,” she corrected him.
“I object.” Alex Bruner scrunched up his nose, causing a red wave of wrinkles to form on his forehead. “Mrs. Rundlett doesn’t have to testify against her husband.”
“This isn’t a trial, sir.” Officer Dyer refused to look at him. “We’re just taking witness statements.”
Witness statements. Gerard shuddered at the words. They should be going after Phoebe Lambert. She was responsible for all of this. Her goats were the reason he’d called the police, who arrived to find not animals but a bleeding Farnsworth. In the meantime, the real criminal had escaped. Phoebe had pulled the goats by their horns to her parents’ house, whose backyard abutted the golf course near Plateau. An ancient privet hedge kept golfers out, but failed, apparently, to keep goats in. Or maybe Phoebe had left the gate open just to cause trouble. And he thought she was safe in Seattle, harassing someone else this summer.
“Now,” Officer Dyer said patiently to Gwen, tipping ever more in her direction. “Why don’t you just tell me what you saw out on the terrace.”
“As I was saying, when we heard what was going on, we hurried to see the animals. Roger was having the duck, which is so tender you could eat it with a feather the way Vita prepares it. Maybe there’s some left.” She looked around.
Officer Dyer grunted without inflection. “Go on.”
“You see those drapes, how they go right to the floor? They are not original to the house of course—fabric is not nearly so stable as marble. But I think the committee did a good job at keeping them in the same ‘tone’ as what would have been here.” She looked at Gerard for confirmation, but he was too numb to nod.
Officer Dyer made a stiff motion with his hand, and she continued. “The way I see it, Roger must have tripped on the damask while holding the fork, and the next thing I know Willard is screaming some nonsense about being attacked.”
Alex Bruner frowned in agreement.
Officer Dyer closed his pad. “Mr. Farnsworth says it was on purpose, you say it was an accident, and your husband won’t say a thing. I think it’s time we all talked down at the station.”
Gwen clasped her hands together and let them fall in her lap in exasperation. “But there’s no need.”
“Don’t worry, Gwen.” Alex Bruner put his liver-spotted hand on hers. “Ellen and I will be right there with you.”
“Or,” said Officer Dyer, “we can finish this up right here. Just tell me: Do you know of any reason your husband may have had to injure Mr. Farnsworth?”
Gwen pinked up, mirroring the color of the walls. “I’d have to think,” she said, not wanting to think at all about the many reasons why Roger would want to do harm to Willard. It was a mess, all of it. Two families about to be united until Arietta Wingate spoke up: The marriage could not be because of some distant diddling between Karen and Willard. Poor Karen had died of breast cancer before Nina even started dating, and so she was not there to stop the relationship before it had gone so far as caterer deposits. The women, including mortified Anne, Willard’s wife, had to take matters into their own hands, intoxicating innocent Eliot and bringing in the working girl. But what else could be done? It was unthinkable, the consequences. Half-siblings, marrying. If only Roger, assuming it had just been an unfortunately timed last fling by Eliot, hadn’t tried to bring the couple back to the table—he was just that sort of man, she thought warmly, a real mediator—well, if he hadn’t started that process, she wouldn’t have had to tell him the truth. And what a mistake that had been. Roger had been sick for weeks, thinking his Nina might not be his, not to mention that his departed wife had been unfaithful.
Oh, she was such an idiot sometimes! Gwen twisted her rings around her fingers. She knew, absolutely, the purposefulness with which Roger fell into Willard, business end of the fork first, even though she believed Willard provoked it with that look he gave Roger. Truly, anything could have been read into that smile.
Alex whispered in her ear, and she automatically repeated his words. “It’s hard to say,” she murmured to Officer Dyer, who had just accepted a cup of cappuccino and a pastry from Vita. He parted the drapes to check on Roger, then took a seat.
For the briefest of moments, with the officer more focused on his pastry rather than a fork, Gerard felt that this too might pass, that life would one day return to normal.
“Our children were once engaged,” Gwen suddenly blurted out, bringing the conversation back to the abnormal.
Officer Dyer put his coffee cup down and sat up straight with his pencil and pad. Gerard wondered if he should simply start screaming as a distraction. Alex whispered sharply into Gwen’s ear, his jowls brushing up against her neck. Just then, Anne Farnsworth entered the dining room, delicately coifed, her pink lipstick fresh, her silk dress impeccable in blue and purple. Her pearls glistened against her neck, as if from her own inner fire.
“Officer, may I interrupt for a moment?” Anne glanced ever so briefly at Gwen, with a flicker of a nod. She held herself very erect, and when she made a gesture with her hands, she kept her elbows close to her waist. “My husband is fine. Dr. Nicastro bandaged the wound, and he believes it will heal quite nicely. Willard was upset earlier whe
n he told you that Mr. Rundlett attacked him. Perhaps, and I can trust you not to let this go any further, he shouldn’t have had that salsa martini before dinner. We have a friend, and Mrs. Rundlett knows who she is, who is incorrigible when it comes to these silly drinks. She wants everyone to join her in her fun, and Willard, well, he has a hard time saying no to a woman. The fork, the stab. . .it was obviously an accident. He is not going to press charges. At least not against Roger. Maybe against the goats?”
She laughed without moving her mouth, and they all, Vita, Gerard, and Mrs. Rundlett, joined in with a forced hilarity. Even Officer Dyer lightened his face for a moment. Only Alex Bruner remained unamused.
“The Club, however, will definitely seek charges against the animals.” Gerard stood and adjusted his tie. “This isn’t going to happen again.”
“We must be more generous, Mr. Wilton,” said Anne Farnsworth. “We must be forgiving of the animal nature.”
“No, they can’t help themselves,” said Gwen, looking up at her old friend and almost in-law. “Can they?”
Anne gave Gwen a wry smile, then kissed her on the cheek. “Good night. I should get Willard home now.”
“We’re so sorry, Anne. We’ll pay for the suit, of course.”
“I think it can be repaired. There’s no need for a whole new one.” As she left the dining room, she passed Arietta Wingate at the door without looking at her.
Officer Dyer put his pad back in his pocket; then he and his partner—who had failed to collect any witness statements from the small pool of members hiding in the lounge—left the Club with a paper plate of cookies.
“This is some bouillabaisse,” Vita said to a listless Gerard as she peered out the window, watching the red taillights disappear down the driveway. “What do we do about charging the members for ordered-but-not-served food? I have forty plates lined up for takeoff downstairs.”
Gerard put his head into his hands. He’d have to talk to Clendenning about the charges. “That Lambert girl,” he said, moaning. “If there was any justice in the world, she’d be paying.”
“It wasn’t the goats, it was the screaming and blood that drove everyone out of here,” said Vita. “Away from my food.” Then she sent Luisa to the lounge to see if anyone was left and if they would still like their dinners now that the police were gone.
“Vita, may I give my compliments and condolences?” Dr. Nicastro called from across the empty room, recently returned from attending to Farnsworth’s leg. He picked up a paper-thin bone from his squab and sucked the marrow from it. Two tiny skeletons were arranged with paleontological care on his plate, as he had to finish off the Fishers’ appetizers as well. In the moment of shocked silence after Farnsworth screamed, Hilary Fisher had coolly downed her drink, thanked Frank excessively for a dinner they had not yet been served, pulled her pliable husband to his feet, and ran. “All the rats have left the ship, Vita, but I’m still game if you are. Why not put your trotters in the trough with me?”
Vita beamed. Her savior. Dr. Nicastro, whose skin was the color of her best pan gravy, appreciated the enormity of her loss in something other than economic terms. She felt incomplete having been unable to serve what she had created. She felt hungry. She went down to the kitchen and brought up his entrée, lamb kabobs with spicy celery-root puree and mint vinaigrette, and one for herself.
“They’re suffering a bit from heat-lamp wilt,” she said, spreading a napkin on her lap.
“You’re an honest woman.” He lifted a skewer from the plate. “Some chefs would have sprayed the plates with oil.”
Vita smiled and toasted him with her skewered meat.
Gerard noticed this breach of the Employee Manual (Ch. 6—Member-Staff Relations: At no time may an employee sit with a member on Club premises and disturb the impenetrable veil that must separate the server and the served), but he was too weak to make a fuss. Besides, who would see them? As he wandered the empty room, halfheartedly straightening chairs, he recalled with cold clarity the stare Clendenning had given him as he and his party smoothly rolled out of the dining room. But why pick on him? None of this was his doing and it had nothing to do with geese. It had to do with goats. If they hadn’t been on the terrace, the two men wouldn’t have been thrown together with Mr. Rundlett clutching a fork. It must have been an irresistible temptation to take one little poke. And now, praise God, it was officially an accident. An accident with purpose, but an accident nonetheless.
And for this he might very well lose his job.
Chapter Ten
The Bunker
ON MONDAY MORNING, Gerard met with Clendenning, who in as few words as humanly possible told him that, regrettably, the members were to be charged for the uneaten dinners. The Club could not sustain a loss of that magnitude. The economic times were uncertain at best. Some members were behind in dues; others had requested leaves of absence. A few had to resign altogether, as they needed their $25,000 bond to pay for tuitions or mortgages or lawyers. Clendenning had to admit, early on in the recession he’d looked on it as a time when the Club could “sift out.” But now it was going on too long, and if there weren’t going to be job cuts—and he said this slowly and significantly—then care had to be taken in matters of billing. And, after all, no one had made the diners leave. He and his party, of course, had to leave so abruptly because Mrs. Clendenning had taken ill—he hoped it was not from something she ate—and he’d had the foresight to cancel the remaining part of his order before leaving. Those who had not canceled would have to pay. And that was most of all the rest.
On Thursday, the monthly bills went out, never a happy day for the membership but an even worse one for Gerard. When money got tight, members felt more strongly than ever the need to appear careless about it, so instead of complaining about bills, they freely, and repeatedly, complained about the Club and the geese. And, by association, Gerard.
Ralph Bellows, for instance. Gerard could guess he was smarting about being charged several hundred dollars for what amounted to a round of cocktails and nibbles for a party of four. But instead of arguing about that, Bellows arrived at the office holding his tartan golf bag out in front of him as evidence of Gerard’s incompetence and mismanagement. It was fouled by a single splat of goose dropping, which had unfortunately landed on a baby blue square and not a green one, where it might have just blended in. The splat on the bag, however, was inconsequential compared to the mess on the Oriental rug carried in on Bellows’s tasseled cleats.
“Mr. Bellows, do have a seat. Let me buzz Barry and have him hose this off. I’m glad you came in because I’ve been meaning to talk to you, man to man, about this goose situation, if I may. Coffee?”
Bellows, tan as a tobacco leaf, hair white as swansdown, sat in a huff, as if he had a great many other things to do, even though he had not much to do at all except to cater to his many sporting affections, such as golf, sailing, and shooting. His was a life of almost senseless ease, and yet he wore a look of constant aggravation. His white eyebrows were angled sharply in a V, pressing his eyes into black slits from which he viewed the world with marked disdain. Even his nose cast a shadow on his face, and nothing cheered him so much as a thoroughly good grumble. “No.”
Gerard buzzed Barry, then closed his venetian blinds. He never used to shut himself off from his glorious view, but now it was ruined by the silhouettes of hawks applied to the glass by the House & Grounds Committee after a kamikaze sparrow had crashed into it that week. The death was not an uncommon occurrence, the difference being that this time Gerard had not run out fast enough to scoop up the body for a quick Dumpster burial. Not fast enough at all. One of Palmer Stillington’s princess terrors had watched the accident from the lawn and shrieked so loudly you’d think her own plump white neck had twisted and broke. Stillington accused him—him! Not the bird! Him!—of traumatizing his daughter, and the incident moved on wings to the committee. The upshot was the silhouettes, and Gerard was reduced to dwelling in a dark, viewless cell, a prisoner
of the birds.
Gerard poured himself a splash of the Club’s exclusive blend of kona and Peruvian beans (available in the gift shop, $11.95 a pound) from a stainless-steel thermos. He contemplated the Eden Rock emblem printed on the paper cup. It was the Curtis family crest, commissioned in England before the old man died, a shield surmounted by a peacock, his mate, and what seemed to be a gopher. Below, the words occupo et porto. “I seize and carry.”
Yes. He must seize the situation and carry the day. Here sat Ralph Bellows, a member of the Fox Run Hunt Club, known for warm blinds where members played poker until the staff alerted them to birds coming in. Maybe Bellows knew what the rules were.
“Barry will be right up to take care of the bag, a real beauty I might add. A Simmons from Scotland, isn’t it? Understated, elegant, rugged. . .” Gerard trailed on, then, failing to elicit any sort of response from Bellows, who was picking at a loose cuticle, got to the point. “I wonder, Mr. Bellows, if you knew, or if you could find out, what the law might be about the shooting of Canada geese?”
Bellows made a guttural sound, like that of a large hibernating animal being awakened, but did not look up. Gerard poured a packet of sugar slowly into his cup, as so much sand through an hourglass, watching Bellows. Then, out of the corner of his ever-observant eye, he saw Barry standing at the door, and behind Barry—a young goose?
“Here to collect that bag, Mr. Bellows, sir,” said Barry.
Bellows grunted and continued to pick at his cuticle. Gerard could not get a word out of his mouth, and what word would he use if he could? Should he cry “Goose!” in the same way one might yell “Fire!”?
When Barry turned to leave with the golf bag slung over his shoulder, he tripped over his baby bird and almost dropped the bag. Forbes must have jumped out of the open window of his office. Did the little guy take his first flying steps without him being there? Barry felt the twinge of guilt familiar to working mothers everywhere as he swept up the wiggling bundle in his arms before running out the door. Bellows, being Bellows, had never even turned his head to acknowledge Barry’s presence, and so never saw his feathered friend.