Requiem for Innocence

by BV Lawson

  “Thanks,” Drayco replied. “I may take you up on that. But detectives don’t make as much as you think.”

  Usher laughed, or grunted out what resembled a laugh, that worked its way around the cigar through half-closed lips. He waved to Drayco and headed back toward the house. Usher had tossed the cigar-band bird on the ground, and Drayco picked it up before starting the engine. A souvenir of the Gatewoods.

  He waited until he drove up the road a few miles, then pulled over and opened Vesta Mae’s note. Her writing was in a delicate, feminine script. Capital letters lay separated by spaces from the lower case letters and large loops throughout. The message was succinct, “Please come see me. Tomorrow afternoon at two thirty-five. I’ll be alone.”

  39

  Mulling over the latest intrigue from Vesta Mae, Drayco headed into town to pay a visit to Tallent’s Antiques. He knew what he was looking for and spied it right away.

  It had to be the same watch. The pink enamel, gold details, cherubs, and roses. A member of the Tallent’s Antiques clan, daughter Allison, took it out of the case and handed it to him. Like the watch Drayco saw in Beth Sterling’s office and in the wedding photo on Vesta Mae’s wall, it didn’t have any writing or dedication.

  “This is unusual. You get many pocket watches like this?”

  Allison smiled. “This is a first for me. Some people collect these watches, but no one uses them anymore. Nowadays you have to have a Dick Tracy watch with GPS and Internet. Watches like these are quaint. I kinda fancy this one.”

  “I was also interested in a gold locket you had the other day, with turquoise stones. Do you still have that?”

  “We sold that right away. Two days ago. Lockets are popular items. They make great heirlooms.”

  Two days ago. That would match his Vesta Mae sighting. “I don’t suppose you have the name of who bought it? I might coax it out of them for a higher price.”

  “We don’t give out that information. I know the woman and could connect you.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get back to you.”

  If Vesta Mae was “the woman” who bought the item, then somehow she knew it was at the shop in the first place. That would mean Gatewood was probably the one who stole it from Beth Sterling’s office during the funeral and gave it to Quintier as loan payback. Quintier sold it, not knowing its history, but Vesta Mae puzzled out what her husband had done.

  Drayco thanked Allison and drove to the Art of Arts Gallery, parking in front. As he headed inside to wait for Virginia and her rescued-and-refurbished wheelchair, he saw the same grayish-plum car from two evenings ago with Faris Usher and Vesta Mae inside. Parked, a block down. Following him? Waiting for him to leave the antiques store?

  He ducked into the gallery, the air conditioning like a mini-polar-express, and literally bumped into gallery owner Martin Questa, who was as colorful as his shop. His thick red hair was trimmed short in a flattop. And he was sporting several rings on his fingers including one with a carved ear set atop a Van Gogh backdrop. An escapee from the ’60s, in tie-dyed pants with the obligatory peace sign around his neck, he knew Drayco by sight now.

  “Virginia’s class should be out any minute. We get a lot of kids who are moderately talented, but Virginia’s our star pupil.” He whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t let the others know I said so.”

  Drayco smiled. “I’ll bet Lucy appreciates the scholarship you gave Virginia to pay for lessons.”

  Questa put a hand over his heart. “I am a patron of the arts. I consider it my sacred calling.”

  Drayco asked, “I saw Mrs. Gatewood parked outside on my past two visits. Is she taking classes, too?”

  “I wish. That woman could use a creative outlet. Is that the big Caddy that’s parked out there? Hard to miss, isn’t it? I’ve seen it out there a lot, this same time of day. Guess it’s the antiques store she’s after. More her cup of tea.”

  “When you say the Cadillac is there a lot, you mean every day?”

  “On art class evenings when I’m here. I don’t know about other times. That Caddy cost more than I make in two years, but I miss the Gatewood’s Bentley. One of those Azure models. Don’t see those every day. They got rid of it recently. I’d say because it’s a gas guzzler, but that Caddy’s not going to win any fuel efficiency awards.”

  A top-of-the-line Bentley could sell for upwards of two hundred grand in mint condition. More signs Gatewood’s fortune had taken a hit which is where Quintier figured in. And it could explain why he needed to sell Vesta Mae’s jewelry.

  More mysterious were Vesta Mae’s regular sightings near the gallery coinciding with the art classes. And Virginia was in those art classes. Maybe the quest that coaxed Vesta Mae out of her hermitage to the same spot on the same days was a side business selling trinkets at Tallent’s? It was also possible Vesta Mae, and by association Faris Usher, were following and watching Virginia. He should march up to the car and ask, but with Vesta Mae’s note in mind, he didn’t.

  Drayco headed back to the Starfire to wait for Virginia and sat slumped against the seat, sipping from a cup. It was lukewarm and tasted like coffee-flavored plastic. The Novel Café must be having a bad day.

  As he left the Café earlier after buying the coffee, he saw Deputy Tyler exiting a shoe store with a pair of men’s shoes in hand, the kind with Velcro fasteners. It remained to be seen how much longer Nelia’s husband could put those on by himself.

  Drayco took another sip of the astringent liquid. In sickness and in health.

  40

  After seeing Virginia safely home, Drayco hesitated before pulling away from the house. He’d accepted an invitation he wasn’t sure he should have. He pointed the car to the north of town and pulled in front of the Tara-like structure with its gleaming white columns.

  The home of Randolph and Darcie Squier hadn’t changed much, its air of pretense every bit as bad as Gatewood “Villa” and crying out for a real-world makeover. When Darcie welcomed him in, everything was securely in its niche as before, more a showcase than a home. At least the Gatewood mansion had comfortable furniture, with indentations in the seat cushions and slight scuff marks on the legs showing signs of frequent use.

  Darcie immediately pulled him in the direction of the rosewood staircase. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “You’ve seen the downstairs, so it’s time for a tour of the upstairs. Did you know we have six bedrooms? All currently unoccupied.” Her eyes were scanning every inch of his body as her grip on his arm tightened.

  “What do you need six for? Are you running a B&B? Or a brothel?” He maneuvered her away from the stairs and toward the dining room table. He sat down and positioned his chair at an angle to hers. “I’ve come on business.”

  She placing her palms flat on the table. “It’s always business with you, isn’t it? All right then, shoot. But after the entrée, I want some dessert.”

  “I have a weakness for chocolate cheesecake, myself.”

  She glared at him.

  “Give me your impressions of Vesta Mae Gatewood. Surely you’ve run in some of the same circles, considering who your husbands are. Give me anything you’ve got—background, hobbies, interests, where she buys her clothes, whatever crumbs you can toss my way.”

  “Vesta Mae Gatewood? Why would you be interested in her?”

  “As I said, it’s business.”

  Darcie pouted a moment, then the muscles of her face relaxed. “If it’s only business—”

  “Purely professional interest.”

  “Okay, then. Well, we’re the same age. You couldn’t tell, as time hasn’t been kind to her. Or she’s not using the right skin care regimen.”

  Drayco expected a joking smile, but Darcie was serious. She continued, “She was born a Longmire. There aren’t many of them left. They didn’t breed like rabbits. They were Methodist, not Catholic, so there you go. There was old-world money involved, but they’re lousy investors, and there’s not much left. Like my family, which is why we bo
th attended Cape Unity High instead of private school. She was in a lot of clubs like French and Home Ec. She didn’t date much. Too shy.”

  “How did she meet Winthrop Gatewood, then?”

  “Instead of going to college, she went to work for one of Winthrop’s father’s businesses.”

  “I’m guessing that was the same time Gatewood senior pressured his son to get married and produce an heir.”

  “To him, she was attractive enough and available. I remember her being mousy.”

  The decade-old picture of Mrs. Gatewood in the gold locket said otherwise. Definitely not mousy. “When did she become a hermit?”

  “Not long after their marriage. I saw her at functions at first, teas, receptions and the like. Haven’t bumped into her in a long time.”

  “What happened?”

  “The rumor mill says she has schizophrenia, bipolar, you name it. I can’t imagine being cooped up in that old house, never going anywhere.”

  Drayco didn’t let on about seeing Mrs. Gatewood in town. “It’s a nice house.”

  “If you’re the Better Homes and Garden type. You know, suburban housewife. And then there’s the company.”

  “You mean the butler, Faris Usher?”

  “Oh, he seems harmless. He likes to pretend he’s some celebrity bodyguard. I’m talking about Winthrop.”

  “The celebrated philanthropist himself?”

  “He’s got the role down. But if there’s anything I’ve learned from living with a dual-personality like Randolph, it’s when to tell a hyena is pretending to be a spaniel.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s not as sincere about those charities as he leads people to believe. Maybe he’s insecure, because of his ridiculously successful father. I mean those are big shoes for tiny feet. A case of short-man syndrome.”

  “Short-man syndrome?”

  “Men like Napoleon, who try to make up for their physical shortcomings.” She giggled. “I made a pun.” Then she took off her shoes and rubbed one foot against his. “And you know what they say about men with big feet, don’t you?”

  Reaching under the table, she yanked off one of his shoes and peered inside. “I knew it! Size thirteen.”

  “That’s a myth, Darcie, and I don’t have time for games.” He reached for the shoe, but she jumped up, holding it away from him.

  “If you want it, you have to catch me,” she called, running up the staircase.

  He groaned and contemplated leaving the house wearing one shoe. How old was Darcie? Thirty-one or thirteen? He parked his remaining shoe by the front door, figuring she didn’t need any additional loafer blackmail, and headed for the room where he thought she disappeared.

  When he poked his head inside what looked like the master bedroom, he saw no signs of her. After one last survey of the massive Tudor-style canopy bed, he turned to head out, when a dark blur pounced on him and pushed him onto the bed.

  Bending her head to nuzzle his neck, she said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a man in my bed.”

  “What about Randolph?”

  “We’ve been sleeping in separate rooms for some time.”

  “Your idea or his?”

  “It was mutual. He’s had some ... medical problems.”

  “Guess it’s a good thing he doesn’t like children.”

  “That’s not going to be an issue with him.” She propped herself up, her arms anchored on his chest. “I was a little relieved. I was half-afraid we’d have a defective child. And Randolph would never put up with that.”

  “Defective? You mean like Virginia?”

  Darcie bit her lip. “You know what I mean.”

  “Actually, I don’t. Enlighten me.”

  “I don’t think my image-conscious husband would tolerate anything other than a perfect child. Blond, blue-eyed, straight A’s, athletic, the works. A trophy child. To match his trophy wife. He’s practically a eugene cheerleader, rah rah.”

  He was pretty sure she meant eugenics. But she resumed nuzzling his neck, and he forgot all about that. She hit that nerve above his carotid artery that always sent tingling electrical jolts down his side, reaching his thigh. Damn, she was good.

  He didn’t love Darcie, he knew that. She was tempting in the way a drug was tempting. To take the edge off loneliness or feelings of failure or loss. A drug in small doses couldn’t hurt, could it? He thought briefly of Nelia and Tim Tyler. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

  He flipped her over in a single move, pinning her arms above her head. Her eyes widened and grew darker with desire. Feeling her primed and ready beneath him, he was in danger of giving in. Perhaps he hadn’t come here only interested in business.

  With one last attempt at throwing cold water on the fire, he said, “Darcie, you’re young, and despite your A-list tastes, you’re a small-town girl who’s led a sheltered life. After your divorce, move to New York like you’ve always wanted. Date. A lot. If you don’t know who you really are, how can you expect to find the right man?”

  “I already have. He’s right in front of me.” She slipped her arms from under his grasp and knitted her fingers together behind his head to pull him toward her parted lips.

  He managed to say, “You’ve been a big help to me, you know,” before capturing her lips and relaxing into her embrace, enjoying her warm, soft body. He pulled back to add, “Better than that, you’ve been an inspiration.”

  Darcie drew him closer. “Then I think I deserve a proper thank you.”

  Apparently so did he because he proceeded to show her how very grateful he was.

  41

  Drayco rubbed his hand across the smooth surface of the piano lid, taking in the sensual elegance beneath his fingers. Playing the piano and making love had a lot in common. The same channeling of passionate emotions, the intensity, the release. He left Darcie with both shoes intact but his resolve to avoid getting physically involved with her lying shattered in pieces at the bottom of his willpower.

  As always, when confronted with conundrums, both personal and professional, he was lured to music like a salmon to the stream where it was born. Inescapable. Inevitable. Inviolable.

  He could have opted for Maida’s Chickering, but for reasons he couldn’t articulate, he needed to come here. To the Opera House. He walked around the piano, eyeing it as if it were an untamed animal ready to strike. He was sitting at this very piano three months ago when he worked through a wild theory dredging up ghosts irrevocably tied to the Opera House. That theory took him into some dark places.

  He looked up at the catwalk above the stage where a murderer plummeted to his death. The railings were still rusty, the one section still broken. Why was he so emotionally connected to this building, this seemingly doomed house of long-ago sins?

  He listened intently. Nothing other than the steady hum of the air handler. If he strained his imagination, he could hear the sounds of programs rustling and the collective intake of breath as an expectant audience waited for him to start playing. It seemed someone was always waiting for him, to perform, to instruct, to deduce.

  Except for the piano. It wanted nothing from him, no expectations, no desires, no preconceived ideas of what he could or couldn’t do. It merely waited for him to bring sound to the silence, to create life and music from inanimate pieces of ivory, wood, and metal.

  He made a quick stop to the green room to let hot water soak his right arm for a few minutes. Then he sat at the 1920s instrument, still amazed it sounded as good as it did, and warmed up with a few scales before jumping right into a Bach fugue. The fugues of Bach were like musical anagrams. Exercises in exploring every conceivable possibility. Bach’s music made a perfect foil for him as he puzzled through his thorniest cases.

  His fingers were reflected in the mirror image of the polished black of the fallboard as if they belonged to someone else. They flew over the keys, and he settled into the familiar sense of being transported to a place where all sense of time was nonexistent. His left
hand worked through the syncopated theme while his right hand played quavers. He connected the images from his mental notebook—the four murdered DC victims, Arnold and Beth Sterling, Virginia.

  There was a snippet, some minutia, nagging him in the depths of his subconscious, a connection relevant to Marcus Laessig. Annoyed, he dug harder into the keys, picking up the tempo, pushing his fingers to the limits of their flexibility. As his fingers worked through the music, a name worked its way through his mental clutter.

  Darcie first jump-started the Laessig connection with her comment about eugenics. Throw in Virginia’s fear of needles, and he might know who killed Laessig and the three other victims in D.C. It might give Matthew Laessig closure, but what about Virginia?

  He began a different, more complicated fugue than the last. Virginia’s situation wasn’t as cut-and-dried. The prejudice represented by the Laessig case was a horrific consequence of cultural brainwashing taken to the extreme. One he’d seen before.

  Not so the motive potentially at the heart of Virginia’s attacks and the Sterling murders. Absent a confession, the only proof may have had died with Beth Sterling. Unless he found what she left “in the back” for Virginia, and it still might not help.

  It was years since someone got under his skin like Virginia. He wasn’t sure what it was about her that brought to mind his sister Casey. The artistic talent, the lopsided smile curled to the left, or the way her hazel eyes changed colors with her moods. He gave Virginia the photo of Casey he kept in his wallet, which she’d clutched to her chest with a promise to make her best painting yet, debating whether to use acrylics or watercolors.

  Casey’s untimely death, the Sterlings, all the other murders he’d worked. Mere statistics to most. That was the vagary of life, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter how long you’re here or when you go. The universe kept ticking right along for billions more years, oblivious to the fact you ever existed. Depending on your view, that was either the most depressing or most glorious thing you could imagine.