Morgan James - Promise McNeal 01 - Quiet the Dead

by Morgan James

  Tucked under a shadowy overhang, a dark grained oak slab, carved in Romanesque style with acanthus leaves framing a life sized helmeted medieval knight, sword at his side, made up the front door. I wondered if the knight meant the designer had a sense of humor, once you got past the stark exterior. When I rang the bell a gray cat tiptoed up to me from a hiding place in the azaleas to rhythmically wind her body back and forth at my feet. Just as I stooped to pet her skinny back, the door opened and Paulie Tournay reached for my jacket sleeve and pulled me into the house.

  “Come inside, quick. She runs in whenever she gets the chance. Pesky animal.” He shut the door behind us and released me. “Sorry. You must be Dr. McNeal?”

  I extended my hand and he received it with a warm open smile. “Mr. Tournay. Thank you for seeing me.”

  “Please, Paul. Not Paulie, as my mother continues to call me, just Paul,” he offered. His photographs did not do him justice. His muscular upper arms and chest defining his short sleeved, white Polo tee shirt told me why he was cast as the hunk in a daytime soap. And in the handsome face, large languid brown eyes that you really, really wanted to believe arrested my attention. His voice was at once theatrical and intimate when he spoke. “And you are welcome. Whatever dramatics Mummy dearest is up to, I’ve learned it’s best to get it over with so the rest of us can get back to some sort of normal life. Come in, come in.” He exchanged my hand for an elbow to guide me and his citrus cologne settled comfortable on me as we moved through the foyer. “So, tell me what this is all about. Grandfather’s trust, I imagine, since lawyers, the world’s largest species of predators are involved.”

  Before I could answer, booted footsteps clomp, clomp, clomping, down the wood stairs into the foyer, accompanied a youngish, slightly built, sandy haired man carrying an over stuffed duffle bag. He shot Paul a look angry enough to scatter bats, and slammed a key into his palm. “You will be sorry,” he threatened, and threw open the front door, allowing the skinny gray cat to shoot into the house and disappear somewhere out of sight.

  As the door slammed, Paul grimaced, and then spoke softly. “Dr. McNeal, may I introduce Mitchell Sanders. Mitchell, Dr. McNeal.” His dark eyes narrowed towards the closed door as he slipped the key into his pants pocket. Neither of us spoke. After what seemed like an eternity, a car cranked over and the sound of gravel scattering broke the silence.

  “Lover’s quarrel?”

  Paul forced a thin smile, and shrugged. “How could you tell?”

  I smiled, sympathetically I hoped. “Is it just me, or does he look like a younger, shorter version of Troy Donahue?”

  “Well, I guess. Surfside Six, A Summer Place. Sandra Dee, for God’s sake! He says that’s why he can’t get a break, not until every old fart in the audience who remembers Donahue dies out. I told him to dye his hair, but I think the handsome Mitchell Sanders would rather complain.”

  I nodded in understanding, even though I was certain I was part of that old fart audience who needed to pass on over to give the guy the acting opportunity he felt he so richly deserved.

  Paul sighed. “Oh well, c’est la vie. When in distress we French eat. You may have Mitchell’s share of the curry chicken salad and fresh bread with apple butter. Absolutely fabulous. You’ll see.”

  Not waiting for me to accept his offer, Paul ushered me into the living room. “Please make yourself comfortable. I’ll serve us in here on the table by the windows. Afterwards, you can tell me all about your employer, Attorney Garland Wang, and my mother’s latest nefarious plot.” With that, Paul walked out of the room, presumably to the kitchen and curry chicken. I remained standing, holding Becca’s shoebox and my purse. Paul certainly didn’t seem to be upset by a stranger showing up at his door. Interesting. He was even willing to feed the enemy.

  I took the liberty of leaving my purse and shoebox on the lime green mid-century sectional sofa floating center of the large living room, and did what I always like to do when left alone in other people’s rooms: I prepared to snoop. Though, in looking around, the snooping was going to be short lived as, other than the sofa, the room was sparsely furnished. It didn’t take very much time to run my hand across the mahogany empire desk with gold-plated lion heads encrusting both front corners, or feel the crispness of the yellow taffeta on its accompanying armchair. The top of the desk was bare so not much snooping there; that left the drop leaf mahogany table with carved reeded legs by the windows, our lunch location, and its pair of lyre back chairs upholstered in gold bumblebees alight a maroon background. A muted red, green and gold Oriental rug, set at an angle to the desk, was soft from wear and smelled of aged wool dyes. Umm. Someone had very good taste. I wondered if that someone was Paul or Mitchell Sanders. Hadn’t Garland told me Paul bought and sold antiques?

  I drifted to the wall shared by the foyer to examine a grouping of black and white framed photographs, and mulled over what I’d learned so far about Paulie Tournay. I had to admit I liked him, and it was hard to visualize him terrorizing his mother with a voodoo doll. But then, I reminded myself; I had seen enough sociopaths to know how charming they can be, if charm suits their agenda. Also, there was the matter of Paul saying he had seen Stella Tournay’s ghost, if indeed he did say that. I didn’t doubt Becca would lie, if a lie would get her what she wanted. My internal dialogue was interrupted by one of the photographs—a serious-faced dark haired man, looking much like Paulie, in a evening dress suit and tie, his left arm casually draped around the neck of a solemn black man cradling a horn to his chest. Was it a cornet or trumpet? I confused the two. To the right of the Paulie look-a-like, Paul Sr. no doubt, stood a thin woman, several inches taller than him, wearing a feminine version of a masculine dress suit of the fifties, hers with sharp long lapels and pinched waist. Her hair was casually drawn behind her ears and fell in a thick spread on her shoulders. For the photograph, she leaned comfortably in towards both men and smiled suggestively, playing to the camera. I recognized the woman. The face in the picture and the face of my dream were the same. Stella Tournay. Why have you brought me here, Stella? What do you want from me?

  Paul came sweeping into the living room carrying an aromatic tray of chicken laced with curry and a basket of freshly baked bread. “I see you found the family gallery,” he said. My mouth watered; the coffee and Danish I wolfed down early this morning driving from North Carolina had long since been replaced by gnawing hunger. Paul spread lunch out on the table and continued to talk; then, as I turned to watch him, back lighted with brilliant sunlight from the tall windows behind, I lost the sound of his voice as an image shadowed his shape. I think the term for the condition is “pentimento.” It happens when the presence of an earlier, painted-over image emerges on a canvas. What I saw through Paul, in my mind, if not with my eyes, was a woman crumpled on the floor, and a man with his back to me removing her ballet shippers. My heart fluttered wildly and I struggled for a deep breath. The image faded. I knew in my soul then that Stella Tournay was killed in this room. Paul’s voice came back. He was talking about the photographs.

  “That’s my Grandfather, my Grandmother, and, I think, a friend of theirs, Boo Turner,” he was saying. “Turner was a musician, as you can see by the cornet he’s holding, and he was black. Pretty progressive for my grandparent’s generation, wouldn’t you say? Course, entertainers and artists crossed the color line all the time, even in the fifties. Though I doubt having a black musician friend was all that usual in Atlanta back then. I found those photos in a ratty old brown envelope in Grandfather’s desk drawer back in the Columbia house. I think I was about twelve. He must have known I’d taken them. Months went by, he never mentioned the theft to me, and so I just kept them. I didn’t have the nerve to ask him about them though. I wish I had asked, must have been an interesting story. When he died, I guess I felt those photographs were what remained of my family, so I framed them, and there they hang. Look at my grandmother, Stella Bennett Tournay. She was stunning, wasn’t she?”

  I nodded yes
and continued to study the photos. Most were of Tournay and Stella at various social gatherings. One featured a laughing Stella reclining in a beach chaise, sunglasses atop her head, one arm reaching towards the camera, as if to pluck up something suspended between her and the lens. One showed a younger Stella in can-can outfit beside a man costumed in tights and whiteface. “Yes, stunning,” I agreed. “Is this one your grandmother with your grandfather in costume?”

  Paul moved beside me and hesitated for a moment. “Yes, I believe so. It looks like a young Papa, though I certainly never saw him dressed in tights and whiteface. Papa rarely talked about the past, but he did mention once or twice he met Grandmother in France when they were both performers in a Paris nightclub. That may explain the can-can outfit. It looks like he did pantomime, doesn’t it? Or maybe it was a circus act. I don’t know. It was during the war, I think. Second World War.”

  Reaching back into my scant knowledge of World War II, I replied, “Lucky they got out before the Nazis occupied France.”

  “Umm,” Paul seemed distracted for a moment, then picked up his sentence, “Well actually, according to Mother Dearest, they were both trapped in Paris during the German occupation. When the war ended, because they were married, Grandfather was able to come back to the States with Grandmother. She was a Bennett you know, her mother a Chandless. All that old Atlanta money wanted their daughter back in the good old USA studying dancing, which was what she was supposed to be doing in Europe, not frolicking nearly naked all over Paris. At least that is the story I imagine. I really don’t know. I only know she may have killed herself, or was killed by an unknown person, from an ancient Atlanta Journal newspaper article I also found in Papa’s desk. I don’t know how much my mother knows about Stella’s death. She was only five at the time and the article said she was at her grandparent’s house when it happened. I don’t think my mother even remembers much about Stella. The only thing she really seems to hold on to is the anger of being left motherless. It’s sad really. Of course, I don’t even know if that is really why Mother is so angry. It isn’t as though she talks to me about anything. Listen to me I’m rattling on like a lonely old woman. Enough of that depressing subject.”

  I nodded, though my curiosity was piqued about the other figure, the musician, appearing with the Tournays, and I moved back to the photos. “How did you find out the man on the right was named Boo Turner?”

  Paul moved closer and pointed to a folded card on a table in the foreground of one photo. “Look right there. With a magnifier you can make out the printing, ‘Havana Joe’s, Happy New Year 1956’. Joe’s has been an Atlanta club forever. I’m an actor with an agent who loves me, so I made a call and it didn’t take her long to trace who played there New Year’s Eve 1956. I think my grandparents were probably friends with Turner because of this beach photograph, and because I remember when I was little, Papa brought me over here from Columbia several times, and I believe we met Mr. Turner. They visited, always spoke French to each other, I played around the empty house and yards, down by the creek. Turner was older, of course, by then, still, I’m pretty sure it was him.”

  Paul gestured to another photo at the top right of the grouping. In it Stella and Paul sat casually at a picnic table with Boo Turner. Palmetto fronds anchored the left background of the photograph, drawing attention to white, frothy water stretching endlessly behind them. Plates and glasses cluttered a tablecloth, its tails flapped out by the strong ocean breeze. Several beer bottles clustered at Stella’s elbow; Turner’s mouth was open in a laugh– a scene from any happy picnic. A baby in a frilly bonnet snuggled against Paul Tournay’s chest.

  “Yes, I see what you mean. They do look to be friends on a picnic. The baby is your mother?” I ventured.

  “Yeah,” Paul said wistfully, “hard to believe she was ever a cute, sweet little thing like that.” He sighed and turned to the lunch table. “Speaking of food. Let’s eat.”

  We ate the delicious chicken while Paul chatted about his job as theater director, how talented Atlanta actors and actresses were, and what repairs and renovations he had made to the old house to make it more, “human,” as he put it. I asked him if the house had been rented all these years. He said no, that his grandfather would come over to Atlanta from Columbia occasionally and spend a few days taking care of repairs and basic maintenance on the house. Much was in need of repair when he moved in, he told me and then chuckled about the original gold shag carpet in the bedrooms. I thought it odd Tournay Sr. could not, or would not let go of the house in over forty years, sell it and put sad memories to rest; though Paul chatted easily about his grandfather’s house, no sad memories for him here. He also told me the house was designed by his grandmother and built by the Tournays on the site of a mid-eighteen hundreds gristmill that ground corn into meal and wheat into flour for families in the Howell Mill area of Atlanta. He wasn’t sure how long the mill operated, and said an eroded parapet that once held the mechanism to turn the giant stone wheel was still visible, extending out into the creek from the bedroom side of the house. I asked if the lot was carved from the two side yards of the traditional homes to each side. He said no; he had researched the property and it was really the opposite. The land and mill had found its way into the Bennett family during the thirties. Bennett gave Stella and her new husband the mill site to build a house and then sold off the side lots after Stella died. All the while Paul talked about the house, I was struck at how attached he was to the place and how differently each of us sees the same object. He obviously loved the lean sparse architecture and the somber setting. Why, I could not imagine.

  After we ate our lunch, I helped Paul clear the table and he brought us coffee, along with something small, creamy inside, and wonderfully chocolate. A truffle, he explained. “Heaven,” I replied. “I really like what you’ve done with this room, Paul. Antiques mixed with the more modern style is very clever.”

  He stirred his coffee intently, first not replying, then finally said. “To tell you the truth, it’s Mitchell who is clever with style, and he’s the savvy one with buying and selling antiques. You should see him at Scott’s and Lakewood antiques markets every month. He is like a man on a mission, looking for bargains he can buy low and sell high. He’s quite the trader when it comes to antiques, even has his own mini-shop in one of the converted grocery store malls. Me? I buy what I like regardless of the price, or style.”

  “I haven’t been down to the Scott’s market in years. Near the airport, right? I’ll have to go again. I love old pieces. Though I don’t have a clue if I get bargains or over pay.”

  Paul shrugged. “Well, it’s only money. If you love it and plan to keep it, what does it matter?”

  “Perhaps you are right,” I agreed, though considering my shortfall of cash since I moved to Perry County, a blasé attitude about money was not really in my current lexicon. We drank our coffee silently, me waiting for him to reveal more about himself that might help Garland’s case, him waiting for me to show my hand as to why I insinuated myself into his home and life. I’ve had more practice waiting for clients to grasp a tenuous thread unraveled from experience and connect it to meaning in their life, so I won the standoff.

  Paul, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest, finally broke the ice. “Enough dancing around the unpleasant with happy small talk. The suspense is too much. Go ahead and tell me. What does my darling mother want? And why in the world does Garland Wang send a nice lady like you to do his hatchet work?”

  That was an excellent question; I was beginning to wonder why myself. I segued into my best strategy, honesty. “Thank you for lunch, Paul. It was wonderful.” I anchored my coffee cup back in its saucer and matched my crossed arms with his. “What your mother says she wants is to control the Tournay trust, to replace you as the administrator.”

  Paul did not look shocked, or even angry. “You mean she wants control, with a capitol C. Get her hands on all the money, when she pleases, and cut me out all togeth
er.” He brushed a few breadcrumbs on the table into a tiny pile, and then carefully moved them to his saucer. “No surprise, knowing Becca. How much is the trust worth anyway?”

  I answered him without missing a beat. “I am told about five million dollars.”

  “You must be kidding!” His eyebrows raised in surprise. “Where would Grandfather get that kind of money? He was an art professor at the University of South Carolina, for goodness sakes. No wonder Mother wants all of it. You know, she never wanted to share anything about Papa with me. It wasn’t enough she wouldn’t tell me who my father was; she had to try and cut me off from Papa, too. Fortunately it didn’t work. Papa loved me and I loved him. He was moody, depressed at times, preoccupied with his art and teaching; yet, he gave me what he had to give, and I loved him.” Paul shook his head, sadly, and waved at the air dismissively. “Well, tell her I don’t care about the trust. Tell her she can have the money. Grandfather deeded this house to me before he died; that and his love was all I ever wanted.” Paul rose from the table. “Would you like more coffee, Dr. McNeal?”

  I watched Paul as he spoke and felt his pain resonate from my stomach into my heart. Here was a man wounded by his mother’s callousness, and years of indifference. Did his heart harbor enough evil to send his mother a voodoo doll? True he was probably a good actor and could deliver a convincing story, but it just didn’t fit. No, I was sure he didn’t send the doll. So if Paul didn’t send it, who did? “No, thank you. No more coffee. I’m good,” I answered. This supposed trust case was spinning out in directions I hadn’t anticipated. What was really going on here? A question occurred to me. “Paul, does your mother know the house is already deeded to you?”

  He left the table and came back with an envelope. Opening it, he handed me a warranty deed signed by his grandfather giving him the house. As soon as I held the paper I chided myself for getting involved with Paul’s side of the story. After all, I was being paid to find evidence he was mentally unstable or an outright nut case; asking about the house was not helping Garland’s case one iota. But then, Paul had already said he was willing to give up his share of the trust. If he was telling the truth, Garland had won by default anyway. I decided I cared about Paul and his interest in this ugly house. To hell with Becca.