Death on West End Road

by Carrie Doyle

  “And when she does, I am ready. I have the wine prepared, I have told the kitchen to prepare. They will make the dishes I have selected. It will be a beautiful night.”

  When Antonia maneuvered her way to the back garden to meet Genevieve and Victoria, she couldn’t help be heartened by Giorgio’s remarks. There was something so pure and innocent about his certainty. The cynical side of her wanted to shake him and tell him he had watched too many romantic comedies with magical happy endings, but the optimist in her was ecstatic. How wonderful if he was able to find this woman that he had fallen in love with at first sight. She wished there was some way she could help somehow.

  “Over here!” Genevieve was waving furiously from the corner. She was sitting at a table littered with half-filled wine and cocktail glasses and semi-eaten plates of pasta and salad. Her sister, Victoria, sat on one side of her, and there was another woman at the table whose back was to Antonia.

  “Hello, ladies!” Antonia said, plopping down into the empty chair.

  Whereas Genevieve was statuesque and gazelle-like, Victoria was a shorter and more solid version of her sister. She possessed Genevieve’s green eyes, bronzed skin, and sun-flecked brownish gold hair, but she was more wholesome-looking in appearance at first blush. Not to mention that they drastically differed in the manner in which they dressed. Genevieve’s outfit tonight consisted of a very tight-fitting navy blue top with an enormous polo-playing horse trotting across her unimpressive bosom, paired with white flared bell-bottoms, six-inch heels, and a plethora of gold accessories, while Victoria wore a conservative Lilly Pulitzer dress and dainty pearl earrings.

  “So good to see you!” exclaimed Victoria, leaning in for a hug. She had a warm personality that resonated when she spoke. “It’s been way too long!”

  “I know! How are the kids?”

  “They’re great. All three are at sleepaway camp this summer, just for two weeks, but that’s how I was able to sneak away and see my sis!”

  “So glad you did!”

  “We’re coming to your restaurant tomorrow—Gen said we had to save the best for last.”

  “Wait, I thought you were leaving tomorrow?”

  Genevieve gave Antonia a guilty smile. “I had to coerce you into coming out. I told a white lie. But you can thank me later, because this is Holly.”

  Antonia turned and looked at the other woman seated at the table. The first thought that ran through Antonia’s head was “kicked puppy.” There was something inherently defensive about Holly Wender’s manner, as if she had been subjected to years of mistreatment and, in turn, regarded everyone she met with suspicion and slight disdain. Antonia could imagine her dipping into chat rooms online that hosted roundtables about bullying and mean slights. She was in her early forties with shoulder-length reddish brown hair cut into an attractive shag, smooth unblemished skin, and a chin in the shape of a curvy V. Her lovely dark eyes were underlined with a skinny layer of charcoal in an attempt to mask the smallness of the feature, but eyeliner couldn’t hide the sad, downward turn at the corners. And not a flicker of a smile crossed her thin lips as she scrutinized Antonia and waited for her to speak first.

  “Nice to meet you,” Antonia said.

  “You too,” she responded halfheartedly and returned to pushing arugula and watercress around on her plate. Antonia noted that she had no wedding band on her ring finger.

  During the first fifteen minutes of catching up with Victoria, Antonia studied Holly out of the corner of her eye. She could see why Pauline had been less than enthused about her brother’s girlfriend. It was as if instead of one chip on her shoulder she had a giant bag of Lay’s. There was a petulant poutiness that resonated from her and was evident in the way she impatiently checked her phone, rudely instructed the busboy to fetch her more water—Antonia always bristled when people were unfriendly to service staff—and disinterestedly listened to Victoria’s stories about her children. She did, however, seem quite aware of her body, which was clear from the way she kept shimmying in and out of her jean jacket to display her very well-sculpted biceps, shown to great effect by her tank top.

  “Okay, enough catch up,” Genevieve demanded. “Antonia is literally Cinderella and will be heading to bed in no time, so she needs to grill Holly on all things Pauline Framingham and murder.”

  “Yes, right. Holly, I understand you used to date Russell?” Antonia began.

  Holly’s face remained passive. “Yup.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “I was babysitting a kid at his club, and he hit on me.”

  “How long did you date for?”

  “A couple of years.”

  This will be fun, thought Antonia. Like pulling teeth. “So, you also obviously knew Susie and Pauline?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Come on, Holly. Help her out here,” Victoria prompted. “Give her the skinny. Remember how we thought Pauline and her friends were so stuck-up? They all thought they were so great.”

  “Not really Susie,” contested Holly. “It was the other two. Pauline and Alida. It’s so perfect that now one is famous and the other lives in infamy. I’m sure that needles them. They were both so jealous of each other. Karma is a bitch.”

  Yes it is, thought Antonia. “Pauline and Alida were jealous of each other?”

  “Jealous, competitive. Supposed best friends but nasty about each other behind their backs.”

  “But Susie was nice?”

  “She wasn’t nice,” Holly rebuked. She gave Antonia the once-over before continuing to speak. “I said she wasn’t stuck-up. She was fine, sort of blah, just there. She was kind of Pauline’s toy—Russell called her Pauline’s lapdog. She was around to make Pauline feel good about everything and provide constant companionship and moral support. She had very little personality.”

  “Harsh,” Victoria scolded.

  Holly shrugged. “Just because someone is dead doesn’t mean they were a great person.”

  “Ouch,” Genevieve said.

  Antonia was enraged. She had begun to feel protective of Susie, and here was this little brat Holly writing her off as merely “blah.” How dare she? But instead of losing her temper she chose to remain calm and professional and continue her line of inquiry.

  “Do you think Susie and Pauline had a genuine friendship?”

  “Susie was just happy to be along for the ride. She was the needy type, always wanting to be popular, willing to put up with Pauline’s nasty little asides. And totally effusive. I don’t know how Pauline didn’t see through Susie, or at least get annoyed by what a phony she was. She was such a suck up, but I suppose Pauline loved that sort of fawning. Not to mention power. Russell and I used to laugh that she was Ed McMahon to Pauline’s Johnny Carson. A pathetic, not-that-funny or interesting sidekick.”

  Again, Antonia bristled. She was liking Holly less and less. As if reading her face, Victoria interjected to give Antonia a moment to pull herself together.

  “Holly, I remember you once told me that you saw Pauline tormenting Susie until she cried,” Victoria added. “I think it was about some guy?”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot that,” said Holly, flipping her hair out of the back of her jean jacket that she had donned again. “We were all at dinner one night, and the Framinghams were there—I mean Russell’s parents. And it was this really formal dinner, and the Ambassador—we had to call him ‘Ambassador’—asks Susie about her summer or something like that. And she says some obsequious thing about how grateful she is to be staying at the Framinghams’, and they are the sweetest family in the world, and everything is ‘amazing’—that was her favorite word, ‘amazing.’ She was always a sycophant.

  “But then Pauline, who was clearly mad at Susie for something, starts talking about how Susie was hanging with some bad people. She said it in such a cold, calculated way, like ‘Susie might have to leave. She’s h
anging out with a rough crowd.’ And I remember, Pauline was very calm; she was cutting her steak and didn’t even look up, just said it matter of fact: ‘rough crowd.’ And Susie was totally mortified and started to tear up, and the Framinghams—who were not at all touchy-feely people—immediately changed the topic. Any sort of display of actual human emotion was reprehensible to them. They hated it as much as they hated me. Because of course Mrs. Framingham has to add, ‘we all have to be careful about the people we surround ourselves with,’ and she’s looking straight at Russell and I know she’s referring to me. The whole thing was mortifying.”

  The pain was clearly just as fresh to Holly as it had been that day. Her cheeks were flushed, and she took a long drink of wine to calm herself down. Despite the fact that Antonia didn’t particularly care for Holly, she felt a wave of sympathy. Obviously Holly had taken knocks through the years that had made her insecure and bitter. Antonia thought it best not to linger on that exchange, but she couldn’t resist one last question.

  “Who do you think the ‘rough crowd’ was?” Antonia asked. “There was a rumor that something went on between Dougie and Susie, like one hit on the other, and that’s what prompted Pauline to snap . . .”

  Holly shook her head vehemently. “No way. Dougie was so affected, he would never go for someone like Susie.”

  She’s echoing what Alida said, Antonia thought.

  “You never know what happens behind closed doors . . .” Genevieve added, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

  “They were referring to Kevin Powers. Susie was sleeping with him.”

  “Kevin Powers?” Antonia remarked with surprise. “The landscaper?”

  “Yeah. He supplied them with drugs, and he also supplied Susie with other things.”

  Antonia was stunned. “But Pauline said he was always hitting on her and they wanted him to get lost.”

  “Au contraire. I mean, I’m sure Pauline wanted him to disappear after she procured what she needed from him, but Susie had a real thing for him. He was her little bit of rough. She relished dipping her toe into the local Bonacker scene. I guess you could say the same for Russell dating me.”

  This presented an entirely different perspective on Susie’s death. If she had been hooking up with Kevin and Pauline didn’t approve, would that have caused Pauline to flip out at Susie and kill her? Or perhaps Kevin killed Susie in a heated lovers’ quarrel?

  “Are you sure of this?”

  Holly rolled her eyes. “I’d see them kissing behind the guesthouse all the time. Susie thought she was so discreet, but she couldn’t have been more obvious. She even made up a lie that she was mooning over Scott and that’s why she hung out there, but that was all a ruse. She only had eyes for Kevin. Pauline thought it was really trashy and warned her to cut it out or she wouldn’t be welcome at their house anymore.”

  Antonia needed time to process this information. Why had Pauline deliberately mislead her? She had called Kevin ‘a spurned lover.’ If Pauline knew that Kevin and Susie were having a fling, why wouldn’t she straight-out tell Antonia, who she had hired to uncover the killer? Was she attempting to redirect Antonia’s attention to another suspect?

  “Where were you and Russell when Susie was killed?” asked Genevieve.

  “We had gone to the yacht club. We went out on his boat—he had a slip there—and we went out around Gardiner’s Bay and Shelter Island. Stopped somewhere to swim.”

  “What time were you out?” Antonia asked.

  “I don’t know. We left after lunch and then came back from the club around five-thirty. Then back to Russell’s around six. All hell had broken loose by then.”

  “So you were with Russell the entire time?”

  Holly gave her an impenetrable look. “Yup.”

  “You were totally together from around one to six?”

  Holly stared at her blankly. She took an extra beat to respond. “I just said that.”

  “Sorry . . . I just wanted to confirm the timeline.”

  Holly leaned over and picked up her wineglass. She took a dainty sip. “I don’t understand, I thought you were an innkeeper. Are you also a cop?”

  Genevieve burst out laughing. “That would be classic! No, I told you, Antonia has a knack for solving murders. Pauline Framingham asked her to look into Susie’s.”

  Antonia kept pressing. “Sorry to keep on at this, Holly, but did you see Dougie Marshall when you were at the yacht club?”

  “No. All the newspapers said he was golfing when Susie was killed.”

  “Yes, don’t forget, Antonia, there are several clubs in East Hampton,” Genevieve interjected. “And the Framinghams were members of a few of them. The Dune Club has golf, tennis, and a beach, but then there’s the Yacht Club—that’s what it’s called, The Yacht Club or TYC—which has sailing and water sports.”

  “Oh, right!” Antonia exclaimed. “I didn’t make that distinction. So the Yacht Club is the one out on Gardiner’s Bay? That’s about twenty-five minutes away from the Framingham house, whereas the Dune Club is only about five.”

  “Exactly,” Genevieve concurred.

  That opened up the landscape entirely, Antonia realized. She had thought most of the important players had been clustered all at the same spot, but actually, Scott and Dougie were at the Dune Club, Russell and Holly at the Yacht Club, Pauline and Susie at home. And Kevin Powers was at the Framingham house mowing the lawn when he wasn’t supposed to be. She wasn’t sure if that mattered at all, but the width of her crime scene and potential suspects had just grown exponentially.

  “Did you see Dougie or Kevin that night?”

  “Nobody was allowed to come over. It was a crime scene, the police controlled access,” Holly said. “Once we got there, they interviewed us briefly and then sent us away. Russell slept at my house that night.”

  “And what about Pauline?” Antonia asked.

  “I have no idea,” Holly replied.

  Antonia could tell Holly was becoming tired of the third degree, but she couldn’t resist one final question.

  “Who do you think did it, Holly?”

  Holly gave her a dismissive look. “Colonel Mustard in the library with the wrench.”

  “Come on, help her out,” Victoria pleaded. “She needs to find this killer.”

  It was becoming increasingly difficult for Antonia to imagine how a nice person like Victoria could be longtime friends with someone like Holly, but then you can’t really explain old friendships. People change and it was sometimes hard to remember what had brought you together in the first place. At least that’s how Antonia rationalized her decision to marry her ex-husband.

  “Fine,” Holly conceded as if she were doing Antonia a giant favor. “It was Pauline. She’s the only one who would be able to live with herself afterward. She’s crazy. You really don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, Antonia. It’s going to end badly for you.”

  14

  The last weeks of July in the Hamptons are like a burst piñata where all the little plastic toys and candy and confetti come tumbling out and spill over the electric green grass, and everyone is grabbing, grabbing, grabbing. Parties are everywhere. People are everywhere. Bikers, joggers, golfers, beachgoers, shoppers, tourists, landscapers, construction trucks, and luxury vehicles are everywhere and it is all me first! The tip of the east end of Long Island is saturated and overflowing with an abundance of people who are determined to not let anything stand in the way of what they have to do—whether it be in the quest for fun or for money.

  All of the microcosms that comprise the Hamptons are fully represented. The glamorous fun-seekers cramming the restaurants and bars at night and heading to the beaches during the day with bags of food from Citarella, Round Swamp, and Red Horse Market. They stab their umbrellas into the sand and collapse in their beach chairs until the sun softens and slides down the sky and it is
time to dress up and return to the whirling social scene. All over town, kids are picked up by buses that lurch off, toting them to specialized day camps. The country club folks put on their whites and head to grass courts to lob the yellow ball back and forth, competitively, but not aggressive-competitively (you could never act as if you cared if you won; way too gauche). The day-trippers slink out of their sticky Long Island Railroad seats and walk four abreast down Main Street, oblivious to other pedestrians, determined to pick up an East Hampton sweatshirt and an ice cream cone from Scoop Du Jour.

  Everything is lush and dripping with color and scent. Antonia thought of this time of year as a fully ripened peach. It held so much promise, smelled so sweet, had the potential to be delicious, but ultimately had to be consumed before it began to rot. She needed to metaphorically sink her teeth into everything before it was too late.

  The next morning, after helping Soyla bake pecan sticky buns for the Monday breakfast service, Antonia took a brisk walk on the beach before setting off to meet Kevin Powers at his landscaping company, Powers’ Flowers and Garden Center, located on Montauk Highway near Amagansett. When she spoke with him on the phone she could tell that he was a busy man and this was not an ideal time to chat, but he acquiesced because of her friendship with his brother. She hadn’t quite explained the nature of the visit; only that it was a personal matter that required some clarity.

  As promised, Antonia had called Larry Lipper to invite him to the interview. It was fortuitous that he had a meeting with his editor that couldn’t be changed. He asked Antonia to move her visit to Kevin’s but she explained that he had little time for her and this was absolutely positively the only time he could meet. Larry grumbled but Antonia held firm. Kevin’s type would probably not be candid around someone like Larry and it was better to leave him out of it. She hung up from that call with a victorious smile on her face.

  When Antonia closed the door of her Saab and crunched her way over the gravel driveway toward the nineteeth-century barn that housed Kevin’s offices and garden shop, she was walloped with the pungent smell of blooming flowers. Along the low boxwood hedges that bordered the building were feathery purple Russian sage, lime green zinnias, fragrant verbena, and fat pink hydrangeas. To the right were rows of overflowing flowers, bushes, and trees—a panoply of colors.