Gourdfellas

by Maggie Bruce

So Anita had a good local buddy after all, someone who knew she was coming to town. Someone who had gone out of her way to pay a condolence call. Someone who might have been a good enough friend to help Anita claim her inheritance a little earlier than Marjorie had planned.

  “That’s really nice of you. I know how important it is to be with people you care about at a time like this. I didn’t know Marjorie well, but that’s a terrible way to lose your mother.”

  That seemed neutral enough, but Linda didn’t want to talk about Marjorie. She nodded and glanced at her watch uncomfortably.

  “So, you’ve lived in the Hudson Valley all your life?” Neil leaned forward a little.

  To my amazement, Linda matched the movement, creating a connection between them that left me as the observer. “Not all my life. I went to college in the city, studied art history at NYU. Two years without any luck finding a job—that was a wake-up call, let me tell you. I went searching for something useful to do. Something that actually let me pay the bills. So I came back here and got a real estate license.”

  “Sounds like you ended up with the best of all possible worlds. And now you’re going to list this house for Anita, I bet. The market’s still hot here, so that’s great for both of you.”

  I enjoyed sitting back and watching Neil at work. I might even learn a thing or two that I could use in mediation. But Linda surprised me by jumping up and marching to the doorway.

  “Right,” she said, her eyes swiveling toward the hall. “Hang on a sec, I’m going to see what’s keeping her. Excuse me.”

  “What was that all about? Seemed like a simple statement about real estate, didn’t it?” I looked around the room for anything personal, a photograph, a memento of a family event, but either Marjorie had not a sentimental bone in her body, or Anita had already cleared out anything of personal significance.

  Neil grinned and stroked his trim beard. “This is fun. If the Mets don’t take me back, maybe I’ll just get me a private detective’s license.”

  “Sure, you’d love sitting in a car drinking bad coffee and waiting for the unfaithful wife to open the motel door so you can snap a picture.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “What did you say to her that got her all upset? Why do you think she got so bothered when you mentioned the market being hot? Maybe it was the listing comment, because the state of the market isn’t exactly a secret. Maybe she didn’t—”

  Neil’s hand made a patting motion in the air. Quiet, he was telling me, and then he put on an expectant smile. Two seconds later, Linda and a woman who surely was Anita walked into the room. This was more like the person I’d expected. Her perfume enveloped her in a musky cloud. Anita’s hair was layered and streaked, her makeup—two colors of eye shadow, contoured cheekbones courtesy of well-applied blush, lips that were outlined in plum and then filled with a shimmery copper—extravagant, and her slacks and V-neck sweater designed to show exactly what kind, if not what brand of, undergarments she wore. She looked like she might have stepped out of a high school graduation photo, if you ignored the squint lines in the corners of her eyes.

  “You must be Anita,” I said, rising and offering my hand. “I’m Lili Marino and this is my brother Neil. We just wanted to say how sorry we are about your mother’s death.”

  Anita’s well-shaped left eyebrow lifted. “Thanks. You’re the person who found the rifle, right?”

  Okay, so nothing about her was subtle. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in this circumstance. “Sort of. It fell out of a ceiling tile. I don’t know how it got there.”

  I didn’t ask her if she knew.

  “Yeah, well, I guess my mother made some enemies.” Anita stood in the middle of the room, her gaze searching the tables for something. She turned to Linda, her smooth forehead twisted into a frown. “Where did you put my orange juice?”

  Linda sighed, pivoted, and disappeared into another room. She’d been changed by Anita’s presence into a timid creature who bore little resemblance to the attractive woman who had greeted us. Whether Anita had some hold on her from the past or the present, Linda had been transformed into a grudging puppet.

  “It’s going to take me forever to get rid of this stuff. You know anything about antiques? My mother says she learned a lot, going into people’s houses and their offices and cleaning. Learned maybe more than she should have. Anyway, she knew antiques. Bought stuff that people thought was junk, sold it for a small fortune. I don’t know about any of that.” Anita flopped onto one of the sofas and drew her legs under her. In the light that filtered through the sheer curtains she almost looked like one of those forties movie stars, reeking of glamour and danger.

  Neil pointed to a figurine of a shepherdess, complete with bonnet and staff. “That one looks English to me. Beautiful skin, that long hair. You could have been the model for that one. She looks kind of lonely, though.”

  I could hardly believe his chutzpah. So blatant, so bold. But he seemed to have struck some tender place in Anita Mellon. She dabbed at the outer corner of her eye with a red-tipped pinky and nodded. “My mother used to tell me that she wouldn’t sell that doll because she looked like me. The old bird hardly ever showed a soft spot, but that thing, it made her go all goofy.”

  Neil nodded and did his leaning forward thing again. “Sounds like you didn’t have an easy relationship. That must make this time even harder. I really am sorry.”

  Anita’s eyes narrowed and she sat up straight, her head cocked. A second later, Linda appeared in the doorway bearing a tumbler of orange juice. Even though I couldn’t smell the vodka, I was sure it was there. Anita gulped a third of the liquid and then set the glass on an embroidered doily on the table. Linda hung back in the doorway, hands folded in front of her.

  How, I wondered, had Anita gotten such power over this woman?

  “What did you say?” Anita frowned, peering at Neil as though he were the only person in the room. Then she laughed, a bitter sound that made me cringe. “Oh, right. An easy relationship. The only easy relationship I had in my life was with Connie Lovett. She was the only one who ever cared about what happened to me.”

  I couldn’t help looking over at Linda. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened, but she said nothing.

  “I guess my relationship with my mother would have been okay if only I hadn’t fought back when she made me clean the bathroom floor with a toothbrush. If I’d accepted that I was destined to amount to nothing, that I’d ruined her life simply by being born. As though I asked to be. Not to her, anyway. And you know, this time isn’t harder. It’s easier, not having to listen to her pick me apart.”

  In two strides, Linda appeared in front of Anita. Startled, Anita glared up at the woman, who smiled more confidently now. “I made some coffee. I’ll bring it out. You guys take milk and sugar?”

  Anita drank down half the remaining liquid in her glass and said, “Sure. Bring some of those cookies, too.”

  Her speech had become slurred and her smile lopsided. Linda disappeared and I knew we had only a short time to find out anything more, at least on this visit. We’d gotten nothing by dancing around and pretending. I had nothing to lose by tangoing over to the real question.

  “It’s so sad, your mother’s death. It must be hard, not knowing what happened. Everyone thinks it was because of her stand in favor of the casino, but nobody really knows. I’m sure you’re anxious for the police to find the person who killed her.”

  Anita picked at the scarlet polish on her thumbnail. “Yeah, it’s sad. And yeah it’s hard. But my mother wasn’t killed because of any damn casino. She told me . . .” She cocked her head, listening for footsteps, I presumed. The soft clink of china and silverware were the only sounds from the rear of the house.

  This time, I leaned forward, right into her space so that she couldn’t pretend I wasn’t there. “Your mother told you . . . ?”

  “Oh, yeah. She told me she found something that would turn this town upside down. I never heard her sound so angry. I mean, about som
ething besides me. She said it was one of her—”

  “Here’s the coffee.” Linda put the tray on the table, smiling too hard and trying to hide her shaking hands. “These little cookies, someone baked them and brought them over. That’s one of the nice things about living in a small town. People are always doing things like that, thoughtful. Things that take only a little time, but that let the other person know you’re thinking about them. It’s not like that in the city. It’s—”

  “Will you please stop babbling?” Anita leaned back again and turned to me. “She didn’t tell me what it was. Said I’d mess things up if I knew. I mean, that was just like her. Toss out a crumb, then hit the hand that reaches for it with a hammer. Man, she was a piece of work.”

  My heart pounded and Neil’s breath sounded louder in my ear.

  “What were you talking about just before she said that?” Neil’s voice was soft, soothing, and his dark eyes oozed sympathy.

  Linda fussed with the cookies and held the plate out toward Neil but he ignored her. If I could have booted her into the next county I would have done that happily. She was only trying to please, I told myself. Maybe I was imagining too much when I looked at Anita and Linda and saw something more.

  “She was telling me what a tramp I am. Well, maybe not in those words, but that was what she meant. And then she laughed and took a breath and said it, just like that. Nothing before and nothing after, except to tell me she’d call me at the regular time. Saturday afternoon at two. Every week, whether she had something to say or not.”

  “So you have no idea what she found out? Something that would turn this town upside down—that sounds like it might have had to do with the casino. Did you talk about the casino that day?”

  Suddenly, Anita looked at me as though I were an alien who had just appeared in her living room. “I’m going upstairs,” she said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m tired. Thank you for stopping by and for bringing that thing.”

  Linda steadied her as she negotiated a path around the coffee table. Anita Mellon leaned against her friend and said, “Pull the door shut when you go out.”

  Neil and I sat in the empty room for a full minute before either of us could move. “Not exactly your run-of-the-mill condolence call,” he said as he lowered his leg to the carpet. “Let’s get out of this place. It gives me the creeps.”

  We drove off in silence, thoughts swimming in my brain like brightly colored fish that caught my attention for fleeting seconds until the next one appeared.

  Marjorie might not have delivered her message in the most subtle way, but those weekly calls should have been a clue to Anita that her mother cared, in her own way. A little, at least.

  What was going on between Linda and Anita, and did it have anything to do with Marjorie’s murder?

  And how did Seth fit into this little pas de deux? Maybe it was a dance for three. I hated that I couldn’t just up and ask him . . . or could I?

  “Neil, I need some advice.” The sun had warmed the air enough for me to roll my window down, and I enjoyed the feel of the breeze on my skin.

  “It’s about Seth, right?”

  I glanced over at my brother, who for once was not smiling. How had he read my mind? “Well, yeah. I’m not even going to ask how you know that. I used to feel that there was potential for a real relationship with him. You know, we could talk to each other easily, we liked a lot of the same things, we both were okay taking it slow to see how things went. And they went along just fine.”

  “Until you found that rifle in your ceiling and then got all caught up in suspecting everyone,” Neil said.

  “Guilty.” But that didn’t mean that I didn’t have good reason to be wary of Seth Selinsky. “Okay, I’ve pushed him away. I can’t tell if I imagined things the day of the storm. He says he was with you when that truck came flying over the hill. The timing still feels like maybe . . . or maybe not. But it was weird that he ended up right behind me. Plus, he has this grand scheme to use the land where the casino was to be built, so getting Marjorie out of the way would help grease the wheels of his venture. And now I hear he flew out to see Anita, which opens up a new universe of motives.”

  “Fine,” my brother said, a hint of exasperation in his voice, “but I can’t put it all together to make murder.”

  I had to admit that he was right. “I know. I’m totally confused, but I’m sure there’s a lot that we don’t know. Some thing, some reason, some event we haven’t heard about yet.”

  “How clever of you to notice.” Neil touched my arm, then moved his hand away. “Maybe you’re trying too hard, Lili. Maybe you need to let it go with Seth.”

  But I didn’t want to. I wanted to rescue the possibilities. “Let’s say you’re Seth and you’re completely innocent. What would you be thinking about now?”

  “Let’s go for the easy answer first. Let’s say I’m Seth and I’m guilty. I’m somehow involved in Marjorie’s murder and I’m watching you get all suspicious and pull away. I’d be on edge, I’d be wondering just how much you know and what you’re going to do about it. I’d be working on a contingency plan right about now.”

  I didn’t even want to think what that might include.

  “Okay, that sounds logical. But what about my first question?”

  My brother looked out his side window, so I couldn’t see his expression. We were passing the Rockefeller farm, with its guest house that had been cunningly designed to look like a very large silo. Every time I drove by the wonderfully well-kept spread, I marveled at what huge sums of money could do. Finally, Neil turned and I glanced over to see an amused smile on his face.

  “You know what—the answer is the same. I’d be wondering what you’re thinking and what you’re going to do about it. Either way, a little extra friendliness on your part might get you what want. If he’s not involved, you’ll be putting your relationship back on track. If he is, then you might calm some of his worries by playing nice. I just don’t think you should be alone with him, at least not for a while. So I’m not going home yet, and I don’t think you should go out with him yet. But invite him over, or cozy up at the next casino meeting or something and see what happens.”

  What Neil said made a lot of sense to me. It was safe. It was prudent. It just wasn’t very satisfying.

  Chapter 20

  She told me she found out something that would turn this town upside down.

  I repeated the words aloud, trying to match Anita’s inflection, the tone of voice. It didn’t scan right, didn’t match the sound of what she’d said. If I could get it right, I’d have a pointer, a direction to follow.

  When I sat down at the computer to work on the brochure, the refrain got louder. The more Anita Mellon’s words pattered around in my brain, the more I knew they would lead to the key to this puzzling situation. I couldn’t switch off the song and finish my writing job, not until I understood what Anita—and more important, Marjorie—meant. In my skittering, fitful state, I wasn’t likely to get there on my own. I needed help—the kind of help I trusted, the kind that knew the fabric of Walden Corners so well they could see the tiniest moth hole begin.

  “We’ll convene a meeting this evening,” Nora said when I phoned her. “Can’t do it here because I promised Scooter that he and Armel could have quiet to finish up their term papers. Maybe Elizabeth’s, I’ll check. Anyway, I just tried out a new chocolate mousse pie recipe and I need some tasters to let me know if it works. But when we’re all gathered, you have to tell us about Anita. I’m a little hurt she didn’t ask about us.”

  “Anita Mellon is the definition of self-absorbed,” I said. “Was she always like that?”

  Nora didn’t answer right away. “I suppose. But when we were young, I remember thinking that she had to be. Nobody else thought about her.”

  I arrived at Elizabeth’s and parked behind the four cars already in the drive. The night was soft, the air warmer than it had been, and the fragrance of the lilacs in bloom was like nectar t
hat I wanted to drink in until I was so full I couldn’t move. But I had to move, and it had to be forward. Waiting around while the meter on B. H. Hovanian’s time ticked up a bill would only lead to years of servitude—indentured or not, that wasn’t the future I envisioned.

  I knocked, pushed the door open, and passed through the cherrywood and granite kitchen, following the sound of voices to the living room. Melissa and Elizabeth sat on opposite ends of the white leather sofa, Nora sprawled in one of the white wingback chairs flanking the fireplace, and Susan sat cross-legged in front of the glass-topped coffee table. Susan pointed to a plate with the most amazingly rich-looking slice of chocolate mousse pie topped with swirls of whipped cream. Out of habit and in respect for the ten pounds I wanted to lose, I resisted for two seconds, then carried it over to the matching chair on the other side of the fireplace.

  “We have a lot to talk about,” Nora announced. “Let’s get right to it. Lili, why don’t you tell us about your meeting with Anita?”

  “I have to say, I probably would have recognized her from your descriptions. Except for the wrinkles near her eyes, she probably looks about the same as the last time you all saw her. Frozen in time. Except for her companion. You never mentioned her.”

  Melissa frowned enough for everyone. “Companion?” My eyes drifted to the plate balanced on my lap. “Linda Bannerman. From Rhinebeck. They seemed very . . . close.” It wasn’t the ambiguity of their relationship that intrigued me, really. It was the fact that Anita appeared to have some kind of power over the other woman. “As though Anita knew something about Linda and had totally cowed the woman into a kind of emotional slavery.”

  Nora’s sigh broke the silence. “She lived in Rhinebeck, went to high school there, so I didn’t know her, really. I’ve met her a couple of times in the past ten years, you know, local business events. She always struck me as smart enough but not a leader. It was Anita who held court with the kids, even the ones from other schools—they’d probably be goths today—you know, the outsiders who dressed to attract attention. Like Linda, back then.”