“Yes, everyone did seem fairly calm, except maybe Mickey. He was a little wired. What about Claire’s reaction? asked Jane.
“What?”
“She said she knew Rick Moore. What would you say if I told you somebody you knew had died?”
“How terrible, what happened? How did he die?”
“Yeah, unless…,” Jane said.
“Damn it. There’s a spot on this shirt. I’m going to run next door and change. I’ll be ready in a sec,” said Tim.
Jane nodded. She didn’t want to finish her thought out loud anyway. But to herself, she continued, Yeah, unless you already knew.
7
After craning my neck to see around a centerpiece at a dinner party, I finally asked permission to move it. I not only couldn’t see the other guests, I couldn’t even hear them. The cacophony of “things” present on the table, in the room, drowned out any meaningful conversation. Ah, for the simple table….
—BELINDA ST. GERMAIN, Overstuffed
Jane was glad she hadn’t removed her flashlight from her bag. It was one of the objects that she had, at first, considered an “expendable” in the Belinda St. Germain vernacular. She hadn’t actually removed any items from her bag yet. She had, however, added the following: a Campbell and LaSalle brochure and map, several large paper napkins from the roadside grill she and Tim had stopped at on their way to the compound, Belinda St. Germain’s miniworkbook to keep track of things she thought of that could be “subtracted from the multiple lives” she led, according to St. Belinda, as Jane was now beginning to think of her, and this flashlight that she had brought in from the car. Yes, it made her bag even heavier than before, but Jane was just enough of a camper to think a good flashlight is worth the trouble of carrying.
Tim had laughed when she shined the light on the path in front of them.
“Why, Nancy Drew, you think of everything!”
“Look, Bess, I know we look like the cover illustration from The Hidden Staircase, but I don’t want to break my neck here. These little prairie lights or whatever they call them are sweet, but they don’t really illuminate the path enough for me,” said Jane.
The paths were dimly lit with small lights that blended into the landscape. The idea, Tim had told her, was to use as little light as possible, so the starscape would be visible for all. The sky was magnificent, clear and without that hazy Chicago skyline glow. Jane could see the constellations more clearly than she ever had. Unfortunately she didn’t know her Orion from her Cassiopeia, and she made a mental note to see if the old star finder she had bought for Nick at a sale was still in the zipper pocket of her leather travel bag. She had put it there for one of their family trips to Kankakee to visit Don and Nellie but had been so distracted by Nellieness when there that she never took a moment to look up into the night sky. When visiting her mother, Jane was more likely to be looking into Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (ah, the horror, the horror) than the Good Guide to Starry Nights. Or, as Nellie always told her, “Don’t look up, look down. You’re much less likely to step in shit.” No wonder I am able to be such a swell mother to Nick, I am awash in maternal wisdom, she thought.
Unlike Kankakee, however, Campbell and LaSalle was the kind of place that promised you great rewards if you took the time to look up. Uh-oh. She was beginning to sound like the brochure. Ah well, if she could find the star map, she’d stick it in her pocket and tomorrow night dazzle Tim with her we-at-Campbell-and-LaSalle-know-our-stars stuff.
“Do you know who lives in that cabin?” asked Jane.
Tim shook his head. “I haven’t quite got the lay of the land yet. I think I know who’s here; I’m just not sure where.
“I’ll take who for starters,” said Jane.
“Why?”
“Why what?” asked Jane.
“Why who?” asked Tim, clearly enjoying playing Abbot to Jane’s Costello.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about the Westman chest—or whatever it is. Let’s just say it was the real deal when Claire Oh brought it here, and, at a glance, it seemed to be the real deal when she picked it up. She delivered it to Horace without really examining it because she was in a rush to get to the show. Someone here might have made the switch, I mean if it’s really worth so much money. There are trucks loaded with furniture coming in and out all day. There are plenty of opportunities to get a piece in and out of here. During that afternoon quiet time, it’s a graveyard,” said Jane.
“Literally,” said Tim.
“So if someone wanted to make a switch, give Claire Oh the fake chest, there would be plenty of opportunity,” said Jane.
“Opportunity, maybe,” agreed Tim, “but what’s the motive? Antique forgers are people who want to make money, and how is someone from Campbell and LaSalle going to sell a Westman chest without any publicity? An auction would be the way to go for the big bucks, and that would take a buzz. If Claire and Horace were to come forward and made a scene, that would be the ball game.”
They were almost at the entrance to the lodge. Jane wasn’t so sure that what Tim had just said was right. It wouldn’t be the ball game at all if someone just wanted the Westman chest for a personal collection. Jane knew there were people out there who didn’t mind keeping something in a vault, as long as they were the ones with the combination. After all, weren’t there stolen works of art that people bought and kept to stare at in private? They couldn’t display them because everyone in the art world knew they were stolen, but weren’t some paintings worth having to some people, even if they were for their eyes only. Perhaps especially if they were for their eyes only?
So there was the possibility of a Campbell and LaSalle switch. But why would that have led to the murder of Horace Cutler? He had already made a scene about the chest being a forgery, so it wasn’t to shut him up. Someone at Campbell and LaSalle might have wanted their switcheroo kept quiet for a while, but Horace hadn’t publicly accused them; he had publicly accused Claire Oh of cheating him. It would be up to Claire Oh to prove that the chest she had brought to Campbell and LaSalle was a different one than the one she had picked up. She would have been the one to point the finger and cause a scandal. Jane had to call the Oh house again and see if Claire was back. She wanted to ask her if anyone knew about the chest going to Campbell and LaSalle. For that matter, did anyone else know about the chest itself besides Horace Cutler? And did Claire know who had worked on it here at Campbell and LaSalle?
The great room was already full when Jane and Tim entered. Martine was standing in front of the stone fireplace. With a dozen lit candles behind her and that great mane of hair caught up in a high, braided tail, she looked like some kind of priestess about to announce tonight’s sacrifice. Mickey, seemingly unaffected by the goddesslike performance about to begin, was helping himself to a scotch from the enormous walnut sideboard. As soon as he saw Blake though, Jane watched him leave his drink and cross the room to him. Blake looked in his direction as Mickey talked, waving a card that looked like it had paint chips on it, but Blake didn’t seem to look at him as much as through him. Mickey looked ready to start dancing or waving his arms in front of Blake’s face to get his full attention.
Tim took Jane’s elbow and escorted her over to the group of Campbell and LaSalle guests and staff whom she hadn’t yet met. At its center was Glen LaSalle.
“I’m so sorry that your first visit to Campbell and LaSalle is marked by Rick’s tragic accident,” said Glen.
Jane nodded, agreed, everything in keeping with the finder-of-the-body etiquette that she was beginning to know quite well. Perhaps she, like Brenda St. Germain, could find her writing niche with books like How to Break the News That the Man Isn’t Breathing. Why was she feeling so flippant about this? Could it have anything to do with her antipathetic reaction to Martine, who was dramatically serious enough for the whole bunch of them? No one here seemed to be mourning Rick Moore. They just seemed somewhat troubled that it had happened here—and during quiet time. Didn’t the man have any
real friends or family?
“Glen,” asked Jane, as he started to move away, “who were Rick’s pals here?”
“Pals?” asked Glen. He shook his head. “We,” he hesitated and Jane was positive he was about to say the obligatory “at Campbell and LaSalle,” until he caught himself, “are all artists here, and we respect privacy. Rick was devoted to his work, our work, and to bettering his craft. He spent so much time in the archives in Blake’s woodshop that you’d think he was studying for his Ph. D. We were a family…,” Glen said, then shrugged and gave Jane a small smile. “Did we all really know each other? As with most families, I would have to say no.”
Jane turned to Tim when Glen had moved away. “So who were Rick’s pals? I didn’t catch the answer.”
“‘We at Campbell and LaSalle’ don’t have pals,” said Tim. “Get with the program. We do, however, have bedfellows. Strange ones, at that. Martine, for example, has been the consort of both Glen and Blake. Roxanne, as she told you, has been engaged to Blake about a dozen times. Mickey, I believe, sees Annie, the textile artist over there, but only when she’s not with Martine. Keeping it straight so far?” Tim asked. “Although no one around here does, if you get my drift.
“Geoff and Jake have been here forever. They started out as master carpenters, building most of the cabins on the property—the ones that weren’t here from the old family compound days. Under the influence they’ve become master restorers and rebuilders. They also work together making custom furniture for a rarified list of clients. They keep to themselves, worker bees more than les artistes.”
“How about that incredible man over there?” Jane asked. A tall man in a flowing, embroidered caftan stood by the sideboard talking to Mickey. “Not many guys could pull that look off, but he’s an exception.”
“Silver. One name. Like Madonna or Cher or…”
“Or Charo?” Jane offered.
“You will never be able to lie about your age if your popular cultural references date you, dear. But yes, like Charo. Silver founded the literary magazine YES about ten years ago, and his loyal readership has kept him in caftans ever since.”
“Really?” said Jane. “How can anyone support himself running a literary magazine?”
“Only one caftan. No expenses. He mostly lives here and in other writers’ colonies. Gets a grant here and there. Operates as a poet in the schools; gets gigs at small liberal arts colleges. He told me his whole routine one night over some of Campbell and LaSalle’s expensive brandy. He’s a master guest, you know. Adds class to parties and fund-raisers, won a state arts council award for his poetry a few times during the last decade, just enough name recognition to keep him in the literary loop and just enough obscurity to keep him pure.”
“Has he ever hooked up with anyone here?”
“He and Martine look like they borrow each other’s clothes occasionally, but I think he’s a true loner. Likes his persona to stay mysterious and his overhead to stay minimal.”
“Would you like a drink or anything? Martine looks like she’s winding up for a long one,” said a deep voice behind Jane’s right elbow. She turned to see a very pleasant-looking man with brown curly hair and a lazy smile. His brown eyes looked right into Jane’s as he introduced himself.
“I’m Scott Tailor,” he said. “Spelled like the seamstress.”
Jane shook his hand.
“I didn’t see you here before, Scott,” said Tim. He seemed genuinely delighted to see him now.
“I was out brush hunting the past couple of days. I got back for dinner and heard about Rick,” he said. He shook his head and Jane felt obliged to mutter something soothing, so her “So sad” collided with his “So stupid.”
“What?” Jane asked.
“First thing we tell everyone is to keep windows open. All the time. No matter what. Stupid shmuck has been working with finishes long enough to know that breathing that stuff can kill you, especially if you’re working in the ammonia tent.”
Jane shook her head.
“It’s a method for treating wood. Arts and Crafts period. Set up an ammonia tent and let the furniture ‘cure’ in it to get the right color. We don’t even use it that much.”
“I’ve been telling Jane about the Campbell and LaSalle family, and here you come along acting like the disgruntled brother-in-law. No sympathy for the guy?”
“Oh sure, sorry. But come on. He’s been coming here on and off for years, following Blake around like a puppy. Shit, if Blake ever stopped fast, you wouldn’t be able to find Rick, he’d be shoved right up his…”
“So he should have known better?” Jane asked.
“He did know better,” said Scott. “And to go and drown when Martine is in residence. She drools for an opportunity like this. You know, she’s in training to become a life coach or some bullshit thing like that, and this is right up her alley. Last year she was studying addiction counseling; but she said it was too constraining, and she had so much more to give.” Scott drained his glass and poured another. “I’m not kidding. You’d better get a drink. She’s an all-purpose triple threat. She will drive you to be addicted to something to escape her; then she’ll track you down and counsel you out of it; then she’ll make your life a living hell by coaching you through it.”
“If she’s so awful, why does she have such a position of honor here?” asked Jane.
“Honey, this might be the twenty-first century, but this is still a bunch of old hippies living on a commune,” said Scott. “She’s phenomenal in the sack.”
Scott winked and moved to an overstuffed chair with an ottoman and made himself comfortable. He burrowed into the cushions, put a tolerant smile on his face, and gave his full attention to the front of the room where Martine had raised her arms and begun intoning a welcome.
Tim motioned for Jane to take a seat in the back near the sideboard while he quickly poured two tumblers of Grey Goose over ice. He threw in olives and a little olive juice and handed Jane her dirty martini. Scott watched out of the corner of his eye and nodded his approval, slightly raising his own glass in their direction.
“Do you know him well?” Jane asked Tim.
“Yeah, great guy. Plays the melancholy clown around here. I think he’s in love with Roxanne, but it’s hard to tell without a scorecard. And she’s only got eyes for Blake and this place. He’s a terrific painter.”
“Oh, my friends, my fellow travelers in this human realm of joy and pain, let’s bow our heads together, let us create a silence in which our hopes and wishes can float up, out, around, into the realm above our lowly path, into the realm where our friend Rick is now watching us.” Martine spoke these words in a kind of deep, full-throated chant, not unlike some of the poets Jane and Charley heard when they attended university functions for visiting literary artists. Jane always returned from them muttering how much Charley owed her for that one night of pretentious drivel that she would not be able to reclaim. Charley was usually able to call upon one of the nights he had spent at a wrap party for the commercials she had produced in her past life as an advertising executive as a fair exchange in the wasted-minutes-of-our-lives category. Her firm had made it a habit to use any excuse—a finished commercial, a client-pleasing campaign launch, a Clio nomination—to book a table at some trendy downtown restaurant and proceed to drink the night away. She had left that quasicorporate/ quasicreative life with a taste for designer vodka and no regrets. As a matter of fact, as she sipped her drink, she realized she might have enjoyed those writers’ nights with Charley a lot more if they had had a drink or two to get them through the poetry slams.
“We all knew and loved Rick, a quiet man, a fine craftsman, a determined scholar, and we invite his spirit to stay here, with us, at Campbell and LaSalle, to inspire us and guide us…” Martine looked up, her eyes closed, her arms outstretched.
“Eeny-meeny-jelly-beany, the spirits are about to speak,” whispered Tim in his best Bullwinkle J. Moose voice.
Jane laughed, sloshing
the ice cubes in her glass.
Martine looked straight at her, suddenly all business. “That is a wonderful idea,” she said, still looking at Jane. Jane did a Who me? kind of take, looking behind her to see if anyone was signaling something to Martine. But, alas, no. Martine, it appeared, had honed in on Jane.
“We must all speak tonight. We will share our stories and our memories of Rick, and in that way keep him with us. Our newest guest, Jane, was the last to arrive here and sadly was the last to experience the earthly manifestation of Rick and perhaps the first to experience his new being as a spirit among us. Please share,” Martine said, again holding her arms out, this time in supplication to Jane.
Jane felt the flush moving up from her toes. Who was this woman but the recreation of her seventh-grade teacher, who had constantly called her out and embarrassed her for talking when she was merely laughing at one of smart-aleck Tim’s remarks. Jane tried to shake her head in a serious and spiritual manner, one that conveyed the message that she was too overcome to speak, but Martine’s eagle eyes bored into her. Jane knew that she would not let go until her talons wrapped around Jane’s neck and lifted her high in the air—Jane, the little rabbit in the nature documentary that was such easy prey, and so easy to drop from the mountaintop.
Jane cleared her throat and raised her own hands to gesture, then realized she was spilling expensive vodka on her jeans and, oh for the love of mike, was that an olive rolling down her ankle? Martine was standing about four feet away from her and without looking down, she grasped the hands of the two people who sat on either side of the aisle that they had made for her when she began walking to the back of the room. Annie and Mickey, willingly or not, now had their hands raised to Jane.
Jane glanced at Tim, who gave her an innocent and hopeful smile.
“Well, I didn’t know; I mean he was already…,” Jane said, then felt a curious vibration before she heard anything. Thank god, she thought, it’s an earthquake. But the floor did not seem to be moving, the glassware on the sideboard was still, and she realized the vibration was coming from her own pocket and she briefly thought that a heart attack was just as good as an earthquake. Maybe better. It was then she heard what everyone else in the room seemed to be listening to so intently.
The Wrong Stuff Page 8