18 Deader Homes and Gardens (32 page)

I managed to hang up without shattering the receiver. I called Caron’s cell phone. It went to voice message immediately. I took off my shark-attack clothes and put on jeans and a T-shirt. I had driven to Hollow Valley so many times that I recognized individual weeds in the ditches and pockmarked county road signs. The reporters had lost interest, having nothing new to report. Mercifully, there was no police car parked by the arched sign. I drove very slowly to Winston’s house, parked, and went around to the French doors.

No one was in the kitchen. I went down the hall and peered into the master bedroom. The king-sized bed was accommodating three prone bodies, all of them breathing. I made a pot of coffee and went out to the terrace, relieved but angry at Caron’s deception. When I spoke to her via cell phone, she had said that Jordan was not in the graveyard. I’m sure she hadn’t been at that particular moment. The three of them were elsewhere.

I let them sleep while I drank coffee and watched honeybees and butterflies feasting in the flower beds. Eventually I went into the bedroom and roused them with unnecessary zeal. Inez scrambled to find her glasses, and Jordan tried to hide under the tangle of sheets and cotton blankets. Caron slunk into the bathroom to work on her opening statement to be presented to a jury of one.

I waited in the kitchen, drumming my fingers on the countertop. Inez glanced at me as she went to the refrigerator and found a canned soda. Jordan avoided eye contact as she did the same. Caron opted for a defiant look. She perched on a stool and said, “It Wasn’t My Fault.”

Inez gaped at her. “Well, it wasn’t my fault, either.”

Jordan did not offer a disclaimer. I looked them over for a long moment, then said, “Would you care to explain? Please don’t pretend that the Dearg Due chased you in here.”

“Who?” Caron asked, her nose wrinkled.

“Never mind. You told me that you were spending the night at Inez’s house. Inez, your mother called to remind you that you have a dentist’s appointment at eleven. Jordan, there may be an APB out for you. Nattie’s worried about you.”

“So what?” Jordan asked.

Her flippancy impressed Caron and Inez. It did not impress me, however. “As soon as we conclude this little discussion, you are to go straight to the mill and apologize to Aunt Margaret Louise. You will then apologize to Nattie. Got it?”

“Yeah, sure. There’s nothing more fun than being lectured for an hour—and that’s if I’m lucky. Too bad Aunt Margaret Louise can’t put me on a bus home. My parents will have to cancel their vacation so they can drag me to a shrink. Been there, done that. The last one was this really old guy who could barely keep his hands off me. The one before that was a woman who wanted to be my BFF.”

I waited until Caron translated it for me. “Then talk to me,” I said. “Why did you disappear yesterday afternoon? Were you that distressed about Moses’s death?”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” asked Caron. “You promised to tell us everything.”

Jordan shrugged. “That was last night. I’m tired of being accused of lying and exaggerating. I’ll go get down on my knees in front of Aunt Margaret Louise and beg for forgiveness. I will follow all of Ethan’s orders for the rest of the day, and possibly tomorrow. I will set the table and offer to do the dishes. I may hang around for Moses’s funeral. He’s the only one who treated me like a human being.”

“Instead of unpaid labor,” I said. “I understand why you’re angry at them. I would be, too, if I were in your position.”

“You’re
not
in my position, Ms. Malloy. I may be a kid, but I’m not brain-dead. They think I am. They can keep on thinking that while I’m on the road to Springfield or wherever. When the driver stops to make a delivery, I can slip out and hitch a ride to Canada. I’ll become a famous fishing guide and charge hundreds of dollars to take a bunch of guys out to the middle of nowhere.”

“Fishing guide?” echoed Caron. “That’s kind of yucky.”

“You could become a supermodel,” Inez said. “You’ll be like really skinny if you live in the wilderness. You have great cheekbones.”

Jordan touched her face. “Do you think so?”

I cut in before they started debating designers. “Yesterday I watched trucks being loaded. Unless you have the cheekbones of a boxwood, you won’t have much luck escaping on a truck.”

“You don’t get it,” she said again.

I was beyond frustration. “What don’t I get?”

“You should have asked Moses,” she said with a smirk.

I calculated the distance between us. I would have to pole vault across the island to grab her by the shoulders. In that I lacked a pole and the ability to vault, she was relatively safe. “How did you stow away on a delivery truck the first time?”

Caron and Inez were transfixed. Their eyes were locked on Jordan, who’d raised the bar to a much higher level—despite being three years younger. I was sure that they were comparing their antics to hers. She was rebellious and rude. She’d hung around street corners after dark. She had a tattoo.

Jordan looked at me. “I disguised myself as a flowering pear tree. I stuck some petunias between my fingers and held my breath.”

She was still mad at me because I hadn’t slain the dragons and rescued her from the dungeon. I was not unaccustomed to teenagers holding grudges. Caron still complains about being bested in the middle school science fair, even though the winner had analyzed chemicals in the local aquifer and Caron’s sweet potato had rotted in a glass of water. I hastily revised my plan.

“You’re so clever,” I said admiringly. “Tell us how you did it.”

She held out her arms and fluttered her fingers. “Use your imagination, Ms. Malloy. Pandora does a really good weeping willow. It brings tears to my eyes.”

I retreated to the terrace before my baser instincts could kick in. Nattie had told me that Jordan had managed to stow away on a delivery truck. I’d watched two trucks being loaded. Unless Jordan was in cahoots with a workman, she could not have made herself invisible. Unless there was another way. I realized that I’d needed to inspect the trucks more carefully. Only Ethan, Charles, and forty workmen would present a problem. I revised my plan for the second time.

“Jordan,” I said as I came back into the kitchen, “get off the stool and go to the mill right now. Caron and Inez, we have many things to talk about, but we shall do so later.” I clapped my hands like a hard-hearted headmistress. “Move it, all of you!”

Caron made a final plea for the defendant. “You can’t send her back to Those People. What about the Geneva Conventions? Aunt Margaret Louise destroyed her cell phone. She can’t even tweet!”

“Neither can I,” I said. “Tweeting is best left to songbirds. Don’t forget your appointment, Inez. As for you, Caron Malloy—go to the Book Depot and give it a thorough cleaning. Sweep the floor, scour the bathroom, and dust the bookshelves. The new clerk can tell you what else needs to be done.”

“That is so Not Fair,” she protested with a squeak.

“Would you rather spend the day at the nursery? Ethan can find lots of jobs for you, such as picking spider mites off the begonias and spreading fertilizer.”

“I didn’t lie. You asked if Jordan was at the graveyard, and she wasn’t. We really were going to Inez’s house, but we stopped here to rest after that nightmarish hike. We were all covered with bugs and dead leaves and mud. We got in the pool for no more than half an hour, and then Jordan found a quiche in the freezer. It was going to go to waste, so we heated it and ate it. By then, it was too dark to go slogging across a pasture littered with cow poop and who knows what else.”

“No zombies surrounding the house?” I asked sweetly.

Caron crossed her arms. “I am telling you the truth, Mother.”

“I am not a priest who will hear your confession and absolve you on the spot. You did not call me—and don’t pretend your cell phone died. The Book Depot or the Hollow Valley Nursery. Choose one.”

Jordan snorted. “I’d rather scrub the urinals at a bus station than put up with Ethan yammering at me. Uncle Charles acts like he’s seated on a throne, commanding the peasants to dig potatoes with their bare hands. Last week I snuck into the office to hide, but Uncle Charles caught me. He was so pissed off that spittle was flying everywhere while he yelled at me. I thought he was going to hit me.”

Ethan had shown me the office. It was unremarkable. Magazines and brochures were stacked haphazardly in corners. There were maps on the wall of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. A photograph of the family members preparing to cut a ribbon was hung in a place of honor. Other photographs were of Charles, Ethan, Nattie, and Margaret Louise in varied combinations at trade shows. The wall calendar depicted a cottage garden on a sunny day. It was very ho-hum.

“You’ll be fine at Aunt Margaret Louise’s house,” I said to Jordan. I told Caron and Inez that I would drive them to the place where they’d parked the previous day. We left through the front door. Jordan took the path toward the Old Tavern and the mill. There was no conversation as I drove the girls a half mile down the county road and dumped them. It was not yet noon. I went to the duplex, changed back into my black suit, and drove to the square.

Delmond Enterprises Inc. occupied rooms on the second floor of a bank. I had no idea what to say that would elicit a confession. I had no choice but to trust my wits to keep me afloat. A woman with too many teeth smiled at me as I entered the reception room.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “May I help you?”

“I need to speak to Danny Delmond.”

She looked at her calendar. “I don’t seem to have you down for an appointment today. Mr. Delmond is a very busy man. Would you like to schedule an appointment for later this week? He’s free on Thursday morning. What time is convenient for you?”

“Right now,” I said. “Please let him know that Claire Malloy is here.”

Her smile withered. “As I said, he’s a very busy man.”

“Yes, you did say that.” I sat down and opened a copy of
Architectural Digest
to photos of a modern atrocity, with a massive vaulted ceiling, exposed beams, and glass walls. There were no bookcases to distort the geometry. The expanse of hardwood flooring reminded me of a basketball court. I did not look up as the receptionist stood up and went down a hall. I turned to an ad for glossy black leather furniture on a pure white carpet. It would remain so only if the occupants had no feet. Peter and Caron invariably left a trail of grime when they came home. I was picturing Peter in a peculiar cup-shaped chair when the receptionist returned.

“Mr. Delmond will see you now,” she said with icy disapproval.

I replaced the magazine and followed her to Danny’s office. His diploma and contractor’s license hung on the wall, along with photos of himself with golfers, politicians, obscure celebrities, and dead animals. A table was cluttered with blueprints and site maps. The room reeked of cigar smoke and masculine odors.

“Ms. Malloy,” he said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Please don’t bother to sit down, because this will be brief. Stop meddling in my business. You may have menopausal notions that I am involved in the deaths at Hollow Valley, but I am not. Furthermore, stay away from my acquaintances.”

I sat down. “Nanette is a nice girl, and she’ll make a radiant bride. Have you set the date? For appearances’ sake, you might wait until after Angela’s funeral. You don’t want to offend your friends at the country club.” It was not wise of him to irritate me so early in the game. If “menopausal notions” was the best he could do, he might as well be the fish in the barrel.

“You’re a real pain in the ass, Ms. Malloy. How can I convince you that I had nothing to do with Angela’s death?”

“I’m not sure you can,” I said bluntly. “You had motive, means, and opportunity. That’s all it takes. You might be able to blame some of it on your accomplice, but you’ll bear the brunt of it.”

His face contorted in peculiar ways as he tried to control his temper. He gripped his coffee mug with such ferocity that I waited to see if it shattered. I was sorry that I didn’t have a cell phone that could make a video. He glared at me from beneath his lowered brow. “Nanette told me that you questioned her about the weekend. I canceled our plans at the last moment because I wanted to spend some time with another woman. She is married. I will not give you her name so that you can pester her, too. I hope that satisfies you. As for a development at Hollow Valley, I did approach Charles Finnelly after a chamber meeting. He told me that the idea was preposterous. I redid my budget and went to his house with a rough draft of the development and a high offer. He turned me down again. When I got Angela’s e-mail about Terry Kennedy, I admit that I was annoyed that she was even out there, but I had no motive to kill her, Ms. Malloy. The deal was already in the crapper unless Finnelly had an epiphany.”

“Will he confirm this?”

He picked up the telephone receiver. “Want to call him and ask?”

“Maybe you’re planning to kill him next.”

He sneered. “Yeah, and then all the other family members, one by one. The police might not notice, but the heirs would be a tad suspicious. Then I’d have to kill them, too, and the next generation and the next generation. I do not intend to pursue the project into my eighties. I’ve made a bid on a forty-acre parcel on the other side of Farberville. Interested in a two-acre lot?”

“Why should I believe you? You lied to the police.”

He would have thrown his hands in the air had they not been attached. “At this point I doubt I could convince you that I’m not Islamist with a bomb factory in the basement.” He stood up. “Let me show you the drafting room.”

We went to the next room. Roles of long paper poked out of bins. The fluorescent lights made me wince. Plats and survey maps were taped to the walls. The large drafting table dominated the space. A man with bushy eyebrows looked up as we came in. “Yeah?”

“Brad, Ms. Malloy has a deep interest in our business. Please show her the plans for Clover Creek. She’s looking to build a new house.” Danny poked me in the back. “Don’t be shy. You have your choice of lots. I think you’ll like the ones at the back. Wooded, and private.”