18 Deader Homes and Gardens (9 page)

I sucked in a breath. “How long had it been there?”

“Jorgeson didn’t say. He may be able to find out more tomorrow. I’ve got to go. Don’t do anything too illicit or explicit just to persuade the guy to sell you the house.”

“I haf my ways,” I murmured in a German accent, then hung up. After I’d changed my shirt and poured another drink, I tried to make sense of what Peter told me. Maxwell County was no place for sissies. It held the state record per capita for homicides, violent domestic disputes, burglaries, illegal weapons, moonshine, and dubious hunting accidents. Well water was ninety proof. There were rumors that the chicken houses, conveniently devoid of chickens, were equipped with so many grow lights that no stars were visible in the night sky. It was decidedly not Angela Delmond’s milieu.

The proximity of a private landing strip could mean nothing whatsoever, but I didn’t buy that. Angela might have flown the coop, literally. The obvious question was who owned the airplanes that used the strip. Maxwell County lacked the terrain for crop dusters, and had the sheriff been interested in locating large marijuana fields, his search planes would have used a municipal landing strip. Some murky heir of Howard Hughes could have a compound in the middle of the forest, I supposed. Angela might have sold him the property.

I was itching to call Jorgeson, but I didn’t dare use the phone. I dug through my purse to find my cell phone, but the charger had a life independent of mine and often crawled into dark corners or under piles of stuff. One glance into Caron’s room erased any expectation of finding hers.

Time crawled by. Caron and Inez had informed me that they were going to Ashley’s house after tennis; I didn’t expect them until midnight. I tried to motivate myself to sort out the boxes on the dining room floor, but a silverfish slithered out from under one, and I fled to the sofa.

The phone finally rang at nine, just in time to keep me from leaping off the balcony. I licked my lips and said calmly, “This is Claire Malloy.”

“Terry here. I was planning to call you earlier, but I went by to see some friends. How are you?”

I gulped back a sputter of outrage that he’d been chatting with friends while I chewed my toenails. “You’re in Farberville?”

“I’m at the house. It’s pretty late. Do you want to wait until tomorrow to talk about things?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I hung up, grabbed my purse, and made it down the outside staircase without causing myself bodily harm. Angela could be in a private jet over China for all I cared, I thought as I drove at an imprudent speed through dark neighborhoods and busy intersections. There was a veneer of perspiration on my forehead when I screeched to a stop in front of the house in twelve minutes and forty-two seconds.

Terry Kennedy opened the front door. He was taller than his voice had intimated and very lean. His shaggy hair was long enough to get him hanged in Maxwell County. “Claire,” he said, ushering me inside. “Do sit down in the living room. Would you care for a glass of wine?”

I shook my head but followed him into the kitchen to make sure he didn’t disappear on me. Caron would have known the brand names of his clothing, but even I could see that the cotton sweater, jeans, and sandals were expensive. I would have preferred him to be dressed in yard sale chic, and therefore in need of cash. “Did you have any problems getting here?” I asked.

“Typical airline hassles.” He poured himself a glass of wine from a bottle on the kitchen island. After we were settled in the living room, he propped his feet on the coffee table and gazed around the room. “Being back here is eerie, I must say. I feel as if Winston is about to come in from the terrace and challenge me to a game of chess. He wasn’t very good, but I let him win once in a while. Math and logic were not his best subjects. I had to balance his checkbook and handle all the bills. He was all about colors and music, clouds, sunrises and sunsets, distant sounds. He had an incredible imagination.”

I resigned myself to a eulogy. “He designed sets, I read.”

Terry smiled, but not at me. “He loved the theater. He did sets for outlandish musicals and for avant-garde noir. We’d go out afterward with the cast and booze it up until the reviews came out, then celebrate or commiserate with champagne until dawn. We went to parties where we met August Wilson, Arthur Miller, and Wendy Wasserstein. We knew the trendy artists, too. We had a loft in SoHo, with a kosher deli on the ground floor and a bagel shop on the corner.”

“Why did you move here?” I asked, trying to keep the focus on the present neighborhood.

“It is ironic, isn’t it, that a set designer and a professional poker player would choose to live in a town in which the community theater group still puts on
The Mousetrap
and dance revolves around recitals featuring five-year-olds in tutus?” He went to the French windows and looked out at the darkness. “Not that Key West has a performing arts center. The only culture the tourists want is a cheeseburger in paradise.”

“I understand that the Hollow family wasn’t delighted when you moved here,” I said bluntly.

He turned around. “No, I wouldn’t say they were delighted. Winston insisted that we make an effort by throwing a party, but it was a disaster. I thought it was hilarious. All their little noses were twitching, and their eyes were as round as marbles. Charles could barely swallow a dab of very expensive caviar, and his wife went ballistic when I offered her a vodka and tonic, with a twist of lime. Those clichéd hippies tried to be cool, especially the airhead, but the guy was fuming. Nattie was okay once she found her rhythm with tequila shots; she passed out in a chaise on the terrace. Moses played charades by himself in the middle of the room. Oh, and dear Aunt Margaret Louise insisted on telling me truly peculiar stories about her wanton ways back in the sixties—and her fondness for chocolate truffles, which explained why she loaded her pockets with them before she left. She put the sushi slices and the cremini and goat cheese triangles in her purse, along with several pieces of silverware. At least she was more discerning than a New York City bag lady.”

I laughed politely. I was almost certain why Winston and Terry had upset the Hollows, and in particular Charles and Felicia. Nattie had told me they were conservative, and I doubted they’d been prepared to party with a gay couple. I made a mental note to ask for the recipe for the cremini and goat cheese triangles. “So you didn’t see much of them after they realized you were more than housemates.”

Terry sat down on the sofa and primly crossed his legs. In a high, exaggerated voice that warbled, he said, “Oh, darling, they went to extremes to avoid us. I’m surprised they didn’t put up gates to prevent us from driving past our turnoff. Nattie was the exception. She dropped by every week with fresh bread and pots of homemade strawberry jam. Her brownies were to die for.” He abandoned his role of divine diva and said, “We were married in Connecticut the day after the law was enacted. The East Coast and the West Coast are open-minded, but Hollow Valley is a hidey-hole of homophobia. We made friends, both gay and straight, in Farberville. Angela came out to get drunk whenever her husband was shacked up with his latest girlfriend. I found it odd, since she ran with Farberville’s elite and should have been crying in her martinis at the country club.”

“It’s hard to be around people who whisper behind your back,” I said from experience. Carlton had been careful because of the taboo involving faculty and students, but his trysts in his office were a topic of conversation in the English Department for years. I had been fooled only briefly, and was contemplating my alternatives when he died. My only regret was that Caron knew about her father’s Olympic record in philandering. However, both of us had survived, so I moved on to the pertinent topic. “I can understand that the house has disturbing memories for you. Angela told me that you’re willing to sell it, but there may be legal complications. My husband and I will be glad to hire an attorney to sort things out.”

“Ah, yes.” Terry said. “The Hollow family is determined to keep it all in the family, so to speak. They’ve claimed that Winston was under undue influence when he signed the deed that gave the property to me on his death. I was the source of the undue influence, of course. Their story is that I badgered him until he folded, and that he was not in his right mind at the time. I’d never thought of myself as a gold digger, especially since I had a great deal more money than Winston. I majored in math in college and put my knowledge to use as a poker player. Big tournaments pay big bucks. I won a tournament in Monaco and went to Rome to celebrate with friends. Three days later I came home and learned about Winston’s death.”

“At this moment you own the house, though, right?”

“The deed’s on file at the courthouse. I’m not sure about the status of the lawsuit, but my attorney says it could drag on for years. It may muddle the title.” He arose with the elegance of a dancer. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a glass of wine?”

“I’m quite sure,” I said. An exquisitely clever idea came to mind. “If you’re not able to sell the house outright, you could lease it to us until the lawsuit is dismissed.” I remembered something he’d said on the phone. “I can assure you that neither my husband nor I is related to any member of the Hollow family. We have gay friends, and we’ll invite them for dinner parties as often as possible. My daughter and her friends will toilet-paper the statue of the Colonel and decorate him for holidays. The Hollows will hate us, I promise.”

Terry grinned at me. “That’s your best argument so far. I loathe those people. Winston’s parents tried to protect him from their venom by sending him to boarding school, but he had to endure them when he was home. As a child, he was bullied and taunted by his cousins. As his sexual identity emerged, their parents treated him like a pervert. When he came home, he was naive enough to have hopes of reestablishing a decent relationship with them, since his mother was one of the dreaded ‘direct descendants.’ An army of zombies would have received a warmer welcome than we did.”

He went into the kitchen, but I forced myself not to follow him. I did, however, listen for any wayward footsteps in the direction of an exit. He duly returned and said, “Their attitude distressed him, which I’m sure delighted them, but he’d worked on it with a psychiatrist for years and was ready to face them. We had plans for a trip to Rio after I finished my gig in Monaco. He was studying Portuguese and taking samba lessons at a dance studio. Nobody bothered to notify me of his death. I came home and—well, there it was. His ashes had been scattered in the wind. Nattie had the decency to tell me what had happened. I gave Goodwill all of his clothing and put all the personal items in storage. Two days later I left for Key West to stay with friends. I haven’t been back until today.”

“I read the article stating that it was an accident. Did you believe that?”

“In the same way I’d believe the world is flat and alchemy can solve the nation’s financial crisis. Winston would never have gone fishing. There was no fishing gear in the house, and he preferred his fish to be filleted by an unseen hand. There is no way he would have even considered trying to catch whatever icky fishies might inhabit that sluggish excuse for a river. Can you imagine either of us eating catfish? The idea makes me nauseous.”

I sought the most tactful way to broach Nattie’s opinion without divulging her confidence. “Two empty wine bottles were found at the scene. That suggests Winston might have been disoriented when he slipped.”

Terry grimaced. “Yeah, Nattie told me that she thought Winston had committed suicide. She was so upset that she went through a box of tissues. It was all I could do to remain civil. Did she tell you all that crap about finding him sitting on a tree trunk?” I nodded warily. “Well, it’s utter nonsense. Winston would no more have moped in the woods than he would have gone to a biker bar in pink leggings. He wasn’t the least bit depressed when I left. He was excited about the Rio trip. The last thing he said to me was ‘Adeus,’ which he swore was Portuguese for ‘good-bye.’ He had arranged to play with his amateur string quartet, and he’d invited some people for lunch that weekend. He was going to serve smoked trout.” He began to pace around the room, throwing up his hands for emphasis. “He asked me if I thought he should serve a Reisling or sauvignon blanc. Does that sound like someone harboring suicidal thoughts? He didn’t ask me which wine went well with suicide!”

“Then you think…?”

“They murdered him. There’s no way Winston would have taken fishing gear to the river and proceeded to get drunk. They must have held numerous tribal councils to work out a plan to kill him. He didn’t have a heart condition or life-threatening allergy to bee stings or shellfish. If his body were found in his bed, the medical examiner might have insisted on an autopsy. That ruled out poison and suffocation. What’s easier than a blow to the head and a shove? A tidy cause of death, no reason to check the alcohol level in his blood.” He was pacing so fiercely that he was banging into furniture, and his face was as red as a poppy. “I don’t know how they lured him down to the river, but they came up with something. I won’t let them get away with it!”

I winced as his knee hit the coffee table, but I had sense enough not to attempt to placate him. We weren’t going to have a civilized discussion about the terms of the lease until he had loosed all his anger. He was not my idea of an expressionless poker player who never twitched when confronted with four aces. It was easier to imagine him at a table in a grimy Old West saloon, where accusations of cheating led to gunfire. However, I was quite capable of presenting an unruffled visage while holding in outrage. Parenting had trained me well. Terry finally flopped down on the sofa. It was time to return to the matter at hand, which was in my arena of expertise.

“You’re sure they murdered Winston? I can understand that they disapproved of your lifestyle, but why would they go to that extreme? It seems to me that they were doing a good job of ignoring the two of you for three years. Why not just let things continue as they were?”