by Jan Burke
He paused, frowning in concentration; then he went on.
“He probably hid the car nearby, in the highly unlikely case someone should come upon its gruesome cargo. He came back down theses step and rowed the boat to the other side of the quarry. He tied it up and walked back to the house. This all required a great deal of physical effort, but he was in excellent condition. He got into the Hudson and, with his limited driving skills, scraped the right front fender on his way out, as Wishy noted.
“He unloaded his burdens into the boat, which must have been crowded, with not only himself but two bodies, bedding, and perhaps even pieces of headboard, although he may have burned the wood.
“He planned to have the boat sink, and had to ensure it didn’t return to the surface. He would be especially concerned that the bodies not rise, as they would in the natural course of decomposition. Using materials readily available—this is a quarry, after all, with no shortage of rock—he undoubtedly weighted the rowboat’s contents. He rowed out a certain distance from the shore—not too close, but not too far, because the day had already been one of extreme exertion. He then intentionally damaged the boat, perhaps by drilling a hole in the hull beneath his feet, and let it sink. He swam back to shore.
“Between his fears and his efforts, he must have been quite exhausted at this point, but there was still more to do.”
“He got into the driver’s seat,” Wishy said, “sopping wet, and left water everywhere. Which is why the car was still damp the next day.”
“Exactly.”
“And coming back, he smashed the other fender!”
“So it seems. We cannot know the exact sequence of events after he returned to the quarry house. Perhaps he went upstairs and slept a little. Perhaps he set to work patching the wall and cleaning up the worst of it. Perhaps it was then that he called his wife, invented a tale of runaway lovers to hide his crime, and insisted he be left alone to ensure that no one from the mansion would come to the quarry. He still had one major problem to resolve. The bed itself.”
“Did the bed leave the feathers in the car?” Wishy asked.
“No, for even though the Hudson is large, it would have been quite loaded down at that point—bodies, headboard, Billy’s personal effects from the small house. I believe those feathers came from the bedding, possibly a damaged pillow, or perhaps a few feathers had clung to the bodies and were dislodged in transport.
“In all likelihood, not only the bedding but the mattress itself was stained. A feather mattress is bulky, too unwieldy to be included in the rowboat’s cargo. He had to discover a way to otherwise dispose of it. And he found one.
“Now, keep in mind that, to him, this is wholly his domain. This is how he must have quieted his fears of being apprehended for murder, and acted so boldly. This is his quarry, his personal lake, his home. He controls the only the roads that lead to it. He stocks the lake with the fish he likes to eat, then goes out alone to catch them. He has altered this home so that he has the best view, one he will not share with others except by invitation to his bedroom. He alone decides who will visit it and when.
“No, he didn’t worry much about discovery, given that he ruled this kingdom. He probably felt certain that once the bedroom was returned to order, he had little to fear. If questions were asked about the bed or the boat, he would quash them as impertinence. He was a rich man known to have his whims. Those dependent upon him were unlikely to challenge him. So—back to the disposal of the mattress.”
He paused. “Turn around, if you please, gentlemen, and look back toward the house.”
He had held our attention utterly, so until that moment we had not looked behind us.
Here and there along the cliff face below the house, in the trees growing up from the quarry water, and in clumps on the water at our level, were downy white feathers. A large, white, bloodstained, sheetlike object was draped in the branches of one of the trees. The mattress cover.
“Last night,” Slye said, “when I alarmed Max by leaning out the windows of Grimes’s bedroom, I saw many more of these feathers. But what Grimes did with the mattress is plain. He opened the window, but the feather mattress would not fit through it. He was tired at that point, and still had more to do before he could allow anyone else into the house. He used a knife or scissors from the nearby secretary to create an opening in the mattress cover, and spilled the feathers out the window, until he could fit what remained through the opening. The cover caught on a tree, but he believed he would have time to retrieve it later.
“What next? He disassembled a bed in one of the seldom-used guest rooms and reassembled it in his own room. He may have washed or destroyed whatever clothing he had on that day—we may find that at the foot of the cliff beneath his windows, as well.
“At some point after he had rested, he realized he should call in someone more experienced to do the real cleaning. He gives, as Max has noted, an especially cruel order, and requires the young man’s mother to do just that. The rest you know.”
He began to climb the cliff steps again.
“Slye!” the sheriff called after him.
Bunny stopped and turned toward him. “Yes?”
“Did she know?”
“Mrs. Westley? I’m not a mind reader, Sheriff Anderson.” Seeing the sheriff’s look of frustration, he relented a bit. “You saw everything she saw, and you believed the couple had run away. I stand by what I said to you earlier. You will have a hard time proving that Mr. Grimes’s death was other than an accident. If you believe there is some injustice here, by all means, arrest her.”
The sheriff swore quite colorfully, then said, “You know damn well I won’t.”
“Your compassionate approach to law enforcement is, indeed, why I am always happy to help you.”
All the way up the steps, I heard soft muttering behind us, with the phrase “compassionate approach to law enforcement” often being repeated.
The sheriff brought more men to the quarry and dragged the lake in an area Slye suggested as the place where the boat most likely lay. It took several hours, but they found it and were able to recover the bodies.
Some weeks later, Digby announced a visitor: “Mrs. Senechett.”
Bunny said, “What a pleasant surprise! By all means, show her in.”
There was something in Digby’s manner that made me ask Bunny if I should give him privacy. He smiled and told me to stay, that I would find this visitor interesting.
He was right. An elegant woman stepped into the room, who, if only nearly as divine as Mrs. Grimes in appearance, had a je ne sais quoi that made me think that if she had a favor to ask, I would do all in my power to make her happy. She was perhaps ten years my senior. A decade never seemed of less consequence.
She saw Bunny, hurried to him, and embraced him, saying, “Boniface! How good of you to admit me when I’ve not given you a word of warning!”
“Eleanor, could I ever deny you? Come, you must meet my good friend Dr. Max Tyndale, who does his best to keep me sane.”
For the second time that summer, I met a gorgeous woman who did not seem to notice my own appearance. She smiled at me, took my hand in hers, and said, “Oh, Bunny has written to tell me all about you. How fortunate he is to have such a friend.”
We were seated. Digby brought in refreshments, then made himself scarce.
Eleanor Senechett shook her head. “Bunny, you devil, you didn’t tell Dr. Tyndale who I am.” She laughed and turned to me. “You should be warned, sir, that you are having tea with a dangerous lunatic.”
“Bunny is not dangerous. Mostly not,” I amended.
“She means I should warn you that she is an escapee from an asylum—although I think that the order concerning Eleanor Delfontaine Grimes, now Eleanor Senechett, has been lifted, am I right?”
“Yes, you wonderful man. Senechett sends his love and wants to know if ther
e is a quiet place you’d like to have dinner together to celebrate. I’ve been in Beaumont too long to know what’s what around here.”
“Beaumont, Texas?” I asked.
“Yes. My husband is in the oil business. Has Bunny not told you the story?”
“It’s your story to tell, Eleanor,” Bunny said.
“All right, short version for my part of the story. When I was far too young to know any better, I allowed my father to persuade me to marry a man he had chosen for me, a businessman named Everett Grimes. I believe you know enough about him—and at last the world knows enough about him—for me not to need to explain how that worked out. You know he had me committed?”
“Yes.”
“For noticing that he was unfaithful and daring to object to it. My parents were no longer living by then, he controlled my inheritance, and he had a local judge in his pocket.”
“That, too, is being looked into,” Slye said.
“Good. I promised the short version. Here it is. There was a sixteen-year-old boy I won’t name, who quite unexpectedly helped me to escape, and to live for a brief time in a little caretaker’s cottage at the far reaches of the family estate. Said boy was utterly charming, and I believe—if I may be so shameless as to admit it—he had a crush on me.”
“A mad crush,” Bunny said with a grin. “But . . . well, sixteen.”
“This noble sixteen-year-old who could have been in so much trouble—arrested, but worse, targeted by Everett Grimes as an enemy—in the true madness of his mad crush arranged for me to travel to the home of a female cousin in Texas, a young woman starting a business of her own, and who probably received the money for my wages from her wealthy cousin in New York.”
“You’re wrong, Eleanor. She would accept nothing from me.”
“That’s a relief. And she did make a success of it.”
“With your astute help.”
She waved this away. “Short version! While on the job, I met one Mr. Senechett, oilman. The stuff practically comes up out of the ground looking for him, although at that time he was just hoping his first well would come in. I told him he was falling for a lunatic, he told me I was, too, since you had to be crazy to wildcat. We married. The rest—the rest is that we adore Boniface Slye and all who are good to him.”
Bunny, to my amazement, blushed. “It is you who are too good to me. Now, as for a quiet place, no one in the village cooks as well as Armand. You will dine here, of course.”
A little later, as we talked of Grimes, Bunny said, “Eleanor, it is most regrettable to find myself speculating about such things, but—is there any chance that Everett was Billy’s father?”
She glanced at me. “Since you’re here, Dr. Tyndale, I know you are discreet. Yes, Bunny, of course there is. There never was any drunken carter named Westley. I invented him, and bought her a ring to wear. I hired her so the child would have a home and a roof. Everett had long lost interest in her. I could not prove to you that he was Everett’s, but I don’t think she’s the type who would have spread her favors around, if I can say that without shocking Dr. Tyndale.”
“Max,” I said.
“He is remarkably hard to shock,” Bunny said.
She smiled. “One needs that sort of constitution to be friends with you, Bunny.”
“How did you learn of her?” I asked.
“Mrs. Westley? Oh, Mrs. Huddleson, who is a real widow, knew about her situation. It took quite a bit for me to get the story out of Huddie, but she told me, and agreed to help spread the tale of the carter.”
“Did Everett Grimes never recognize a likeness in the boy?” I asked.
“No. As I believe the world knows now, Everett could be quite self-absorbed. But, Max, please say nothing of this to others. Poor Mrs. Westley has had enough to bear.”
“The boy was reading your old copy of The Count of Monte Cristo,” Bunny said. “I have wondered if he knew. If he imagined himself to be Edmond Dantès.”
“Waiting to avenge himself on those who do not recognize him as the one they have wronged?”
He nodded. “If so, it went terribly awry.”
“Forgive me,” I said. “But perhaps he was just a young man in love, trying to impress a beautiful girl.”
“I agree,” Eleanor said, looking at Bunny. “It worked out sadly this time, but I have known young men to behave foolishly on behalf of the women they love, and have it work out quite differently.”
From below we heard a man with a drawl shout, “Digby, you old son of a bitch! How you keepin’? Tell that boss of yours to get a telephone!”
“Up here, Senne!” Eleanor called, her face lighting up in pleasure. I could no longer count Susannah Grimes as the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
“Yes, quite differently,” Bunny said, but I suspect that due to Senechett’s arrival, I was the only one who heard him.
Miscalculation
“All set?” Ada asked. “Of course you are. There isn’t a Girl Scout in the world who took ‘be prepared’ as seriously as you did, Sarah.”
“From the size of that trunk I saw poor Mr. Parsons carrying out of here, I’d say you’re the one who’s over-prepared,” Sarah Milington replied. “Really, Grandmother, we’re only staying on the Queen Mary overnight.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” her adoptive grandmother said, embracing her as she reached her. “And it’s likely I still haven’t brought half of what I really need. You’re the one who’s best at details. If you would come to live with me again—”
“Grandmother . . .” Sarah warned.
“Never mind, I won’t pester you about that now. I think a trunk makes it seem so much more like a real cruise—Oh, here’s Robert,” she said, seeming so pleased that Sarah had to tamp down an annoying little flair of jealousy. More irritating, she was fairly sure Robert Parsons had noted her discomposure.
Although he was always polite to her, Sarah had yet to feel completely at ease around Parsons. Some of this unease was undoubtedly due to her grandmother’s delight in surrounding both Parsons’s background and his position in her household with an air of intrigue, but Sarah knew this was only part of why she felt self-conscious when Parsons was near.
For all his own quietness, his presence in this house caused a great deal of talk. He was the inspiration for plenty of local gossip—gossip that undoubtedly pleased Ada Milington. Robert Parsons—good-looking, broad-shouldered, and not more than thirty years old, had been part of Ada’s household for nearly a year now.
At first, Sarah had believed that the rest of the staff, all much older than Parsons and notoriously protective of her grandmother, would rebel at his presence. In this she was mistaken. Parsons, she now reflected—recalling that he had just carried the largest trunk she had ever seen out to the van—was undoubtedly a godsend to the aging servants. He seemed more than willing to do heavy lifting and to take on any task, no matter how arduous. And, she was forced to admit, he gave every sign of being sincerely devoted to her grandmother.
Sarah knew she had no real personal complaint to make of him. Long accustomed to her grandmother’s love of outrageous behavior, she decided that it was not her place to interfere. Ada had survived four husbands, and if she now wanted to have a fling with a man almost fifty years her junior, Sarah would not be the one to object.
Ada turned to the rest of the staff, which had gathered in the entry. “We’re off on our cruise!” she announced grandly, waving a kiss at them. Amid tossed confetti and their boisterous cheers of “Bon voyage” and “Many happy returns!” she took Parsons’s arm and allowed him to lead the way to the van.
He hadn’t loaded the luggage very efficiently, Sarah thought with a frown, seeing that he had strapped the huge trunk to the long rack on the van’s roof. By simply removing a seat, he could have fit it inside. The wind resistance would have been lower, and she would have o
btained better gas mileage. She was considering this problem when Parsons, after gently helping Ada into the front passenger seat, surprised Sarah by opening the sliding door to the side of the van and seating himself in the back.
No wonder he had left the seat in place! She felt herself blush at the thought of her grandmother marching up the Queen Mary’s gangplank with this virile-looking male in tow. And if Robert Parsons was sharing a room with Ada—but then, she quickly reminded herself, that was none of her business.
Ada’s smile told her that her grandmother was waiting for a challenge, but Sarah merely started the van and began the drive to Long Beach.
She couldn’t help but feel herself an injured party, though. She had wanted to talk privately to her grandmother, perhaps even to confide in her about the dream she had had last night—a recurring, claustrophobic dream from her childhood, of being locked in a closet. That was certainly not possible now. She could picture Robert Parsons’s amusement over that.
“A little ridiculous to have Bella and the others throwing confetti,” she said aloud. “It isn’t really a cruise, after all.”
“I’m pretending it is,” Ada answered. “It’s the closest I can come to a cruise. You know I get seasick.”
“I know nothing of the sort. You’ve been on real cruises.”
“And got sick on the last one. Never again. I do love the ocean, I just don’t want to be feeling it pitch and roll as I blow out my candles. So this will be my cruise—perhaps my last one.”
“It’s not a cruise,” Sarah repeated obstinately.
“Technically, no.”
She might have left it at that, but when she glanced at the rearview mirror, she saw that Parsons was smiling. Smugly, she thought.
“Technically, it isn’t even a ship,” she added.
“No?” Ada said, turning to wink back at him.