A Veiled Deception (21 page)

Twenty-five

My role is that of a seducer.

—JOHN GALLIANO

When I roused from my light-headedness, Sherry smiled with relief. “Are you okay, Mad? I waited for you to come out of it on your own. What did you see?”

A shark and her prey, for one thing, and a familiar pair of earrings, though I didn’t know why they looked familiar.

I mentally frowned at the universe. I need a hint here, please. “Sis, can I tell you in a few? I need to talk to Cort.”

Sherry grabbed my hand. “You won’t hurt him . . . with memories, I mean. He’s such a good man.”

I squeezed her hand. “And he’s getting an incredible daughter-in-law.” I grabbed my Bag of Biblical Proportions and slipped it over my shoulder.

“Oh, before I go, when is Justin’s birthday and how old is he going to be?”

“He’ll be twenty-seven on September fifteenth. Why?”

“Tell you later. Lock the door behind me until that dress is back in its garment bag, then take it out and put it in the trunk of the pimpmobile, will you?”

Eyes twinkling, Sherry agreed. I heard the lock click into place behind me. Deborah hadn’t been pregnant with Justin when she married Cort, and they’d had no other children, so either Deborah lied or she had a miscarriage.

“Deborah,” I said, joining her guests in the drawing room. “Do you know where Cort went? I need to talk with him.”

“Is it something I can help you with?” she asked, clearly curious and maybe a little miffed at being kept out of the loop.

“No, it has to do with our tour of the servants’ quarters.” I’d purposely brought up her personal taboo, and—if there was justice in the world—her worst nightmare, just to see her reaction.

The way she stilled spoke volumes. “He’s around somewhere,” she said, dismissing me in a way that only Deborah could.

So much for being her friend.

I climbed the back stairs to the servants’ quarters and called Cort’s name as I did. He looked down from the top landing. “Madeira?”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Sure, come on up.”

Back at his desk, he waved me in. “I never have company,” he said, “and now twice this week. Deborah rarely comes up here.” His smile became a grin, then a chuckle.

The poor man had to run away from home in his own house.

I opened my bag. “Here’s your picture of Pearl. Thank you for letting me borrow it. My sketch of the coat came out great. And, I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of making a detailed sketch of her face and getting it framed. I thought you might like to have it.”

He ate up the sketch with his gaze, ran his hand over the old photo, and slipped that into a drawer. My sketch, he hung on the wall in its place. I knew that I’d managed to catch the love in her eyes.

Cort swallowed as he examined it. “This means a lot to me, Madeira. Thank you.”

“I signed the drawing,” I said, “but I’d also like to write her name and the date on the back for posterity. May I?”

He took the sketch down and handed it to me.

I slipped the backing from the frame and took a sketching pencil from my bag. I wrote “Pearl” and then I looked at him to supply her last name.

“Morales. Pearl Morales,” he said.

I wrote her last name and the date, put the frame back together, and offered the sketch to him, but he seemed to be gazing beyond me, to better times, perhaps. Maybe he and Deborah were happy in their own way. Who was I to judge?

On the other hand, if I’d been in Pearl’s place, that volley of Deborah’s about Cort not taking me to the country club would have sent me running. Deborah was a slick operator.

“When did you go to New Orleans looking for her?”

“Before I married Deborah. Madeira, I put all that behind me. I’m sure Pearl has, too. Obviously, or she wouldn’t have left me.”

“I’m glad it’s behind you, Cort.”

He touched the sketch on the wall as I left. Sure, he’d put it behind him. I hadn’t meant to bring up old hurts, but I needed to find out why the universe had shown me these things. Why had I seen Pearl in the gown, Mildred as Deborah’s nurse, yet no glimpse of the past when I fitted Dolly for
her
vintage gown?

There must be a reason that only certain pieces of vintage clothing spoke to me. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of being played by the universe like a puppet. I needed to speak to Aunt Fiona about that. Besides, I hadn’t told her yet about meeting Dante.

When I left the servants’ wing and stepped into the house proper from the back stairs, I interrupted Werner and several of his men.

He raised a hand to them, putting the discussion on hold. “Ms. Cutler.”

I nodded. “May I speak with you, Detective? In private?”

“Certainly. Carry on with your search, men.”

Lytton followed me toward the sewing room but stopped just short of my destination. “Mad, you could have talked to me anytime during the last mile.”

“Not without anyone hearing, I couldn’t.” I grabbed his wrist, pulled him into the sewing room, and shut the door.

“Why, Maddie Cutler, how impetuous of you.” He stepped closer.

“Back up, buster.”

“I will, if you stop manhandling me.”

“Oh, sorry.” I let him go.

Werner tugged on his cuffs. “Forgive me for teasing you. Just don’t manhandle me in front of my men, okay?”

“You called me Ms. Cutler for their benefit.”

“And for yours, and you used my title in return. I appreciate that. You wanted to talk to me?”

“Two things. Have you found any boat tourists who might have seen Sherry and Justin in the boathouse?”

“We’re checking on the ones who used credit cards to buy their tickets that evening. We’ll only put Justin’s ass on the six o’clock news as a last resort.”

I smiled. “I’m sure Deborah appreciates that.” I took a deep breath. “I think you should search her papers.” For the one that Mildred Saunders signed, I thought, but didn’t dare say.

How could I? Visions, indeed.

“Because she seems relieved Jasmine’s gone?” Werner asked. He quizzed me with his look.

“I don’t know, but I think maybe Deborah’s hiding something.” And if she wasn’t, my suggestion couldn’t hurt.

Twenty-six

A search for new values led to “Flower Power” and the Hippie movement, as well as interest in the occult . . .

—GERDA BUXBAUM

Where had I seen those pearl earrings before? Scrap! It could have been at a vintage shop in New York years ago or at the butcher shop on a local yesterday, for all I knew.

I checked the pimpmobile’s trunk to make sure the gown was in there before I left Cortland House while several police cars came and went.

The swans on the estate gates as they parted reminded me of the earrings, kissing swans with pearl bodies and diamond eyes. Cort might have had the earrings commissioned, but I wouldn’t ask. Sherry was right. He had painful memories. I’d never seen Deborah wear anything like those earrings. Too sweet. Innocent. Her tastes ran to large sparkles of the diamond variety, pieces just short of neon signs flashing her worth. Mrs. Moneybags, my father had taken to calling her since our dinner here the other night.

My cell phone rang. “Hi, Eve, got anything juicy to report?”

“Not exactly, but I learned that Mildred Saunders and Deborah Knight were classmates at the same finishing school.”

“No surprise there. Anything else?”

“That’s it. What about Pearl; did you get a last name?”

“Just got it. It’s Morales. Feel like going to New Orleans with me? I found an address on the back of a photo Cort has.”

Eve sighed. “I’m giving a class twice a week. When did you want to go?”

“First thing in the morning. Want to see if you can book us a flight?”

“I can’t go tomorrow. I can’t miss the first class.”

“Bummer,” I said, sincerely disappointed. “I’ll go by myself then. It can’t wait.”

“Madeira Cutler, you are
not
trying to solve a murder by yourself?”

“I’ve had a couple more visions and I need answers.”

“I’d like to go on record as saying that I don’t think you should go alone, but it’s too late to cancel my class.”

“I’m going. Book me a flight?”

“I’m not your computer secretary, but of course I will, as usual.”

“You’re a keeper, Mizz Meyers. Do you need my credit card number?”

“No, I have it memorized. I use it all the time.”

I scoffed. “I wouldn’t mind if you did, for something besides your black fighterpilot look.”

“In your dreams. I am who I am.”

“Whatever you say, Popeye. Thanks.”

My phone rang again before I had a chance to put it back in my biblical bag.

“Hello, Aunt Fiona. What’s up?”

“The title on the Underhill-Sweet property is clear. Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“Do you think I shouldn’t?”

“What I think doesn’t matter. If you’re ready to move on this, you need to come and sign a few things before I can process any more paperwork. If you’re not sure, I think you need a sounding board. I’m here, Madeira.”

“I won’t kid you. It’s moving fast, even for me,” I said, “and I do need to talk. I’m leaving Cortland House now. Can I come right over?”

“See you in a few.”

Aunt Fiona sat on her front porch waiting for me with iced tea and a frown. I took the garment bag with the gown from the trunk. “Can I hang this inside while I’m here?” I asked, coming up the walk.

Fiona stood waiting for me. “Is that Sherry’s wedding gown? Do I get a peek?”

“Sure. You want to see what it looks like now? Or do you want to wait and see what it’ll look like when I’m done with it?”

“Madeira, you’re not?”

I tried to look innocent. “I’m not?”

“Deborah will have a cow.” Aunt Fiona waved me away. “We never had this conversation,” she said.

“Fine with me.” I let her screen door bounce off my backside as I went inside to hang the gown.

When I came out, she handed me a glass of iced tea. “How’s our little Chakra Citrine?”

“Afraid of ceiling fans and cell phones, as well as people, though she fearlessly battles house slippers and the dust bunnies beneath my bed. She especially likes to perch on the top of Dad’s bathroom door and swat him when he goes in. She also happens to love
live
mice and baby snakes to the point that she brings them home as gifts.” Dad found a tiny green garden snake in his bed the other night. Fiona clapped a hand to her mouth.

I grinned. “I don’t know how Chakra will feel about Dante when we move into the carriage house.”

“You changed your tune fast. You
want
the carriage house then? Rewind—move into? You? And who’s Dante?”

“Dante Underhill, Mrs. Sweet’s old lover. He’s a ghost and comes with the building. Why can I see him and Eve can’t? I’ve had enough surprises, Aunt Fiona. Why are all these psychic activities happening to me since I came home? Conversing with hottie ghosts, visions of the past, messages from the universe?”

“Really, you talked with Dante? Can I meet him?”

“You think you’ll see him?”

“I know I will.”

I made the porch swing go faster. “Why me? Why now?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes these talents develop late.”

“Okay, so that’s the when. So now the why. Who am I to have such gifts . . . if they are gifts?”

“They are, sweetie, if you want them to be. As to who you are; you’re your mother’s daughter. She, too, was open to what the universe asked of her.”

“My uptight mother was a witch?”

“Your father wouldn’t be happy if I answered that question. But yes, and I can tell you that she wasn’t uptight with the craft. By the way, she used dandelion wine for her rituals, which is why your dad wouldn’t have liked the name for your kitten.”

I chuckled. “Was Mom Wiccan?”

Fiona looked toward the heavens, as if trying to decide whether to answer. Eventually, she sighed in resignation. “Your recent experiences tell me that you need to know this, but woe to us both if your father finds out that you know.”

I crossed my heart.

Fiona did, too. “The Wiccan tradition comes with a set of rules, and your mother didn’t want to be bogged down by rules. Sound like somebody you know?”

I raised my hand. “Me.”

“You’re more like her than you know.” Fiona took my hand. “Kathleen liked the earth-based Celtic tradition. She studied different paths and practiced what felt right to her. Sweetie, your mother was an eclectic witch.”

“I guess you have to be pretty open-minded to practice witchcraft.”

“It’s like a calling.”

“I can’t believe I’m like her. I thought she was uptight and you were the free spirit. Now for the big question. Are you a witch, Aunt Fee?”

“I started as a solitary like your mother, then in college, we found each other and a couple of other like-minded individuals, and we practiced together.”

“But why become a witch?” I asked.

“It’s a belief system, sweetie, a spirituality linked to nature. Have you ever seen the quote ‘You call her mother nature; I call her Goddess’? I don’t know who said it first, but that’s it in a nutshell. I love the words “blessed be” and “bright blessings.” I believe if everybody understood that whatever they put out there came back to them times three, they might think before hurting others. Like your mother, I’m an eclectic. I listen to the universe and to the beat of my own heart.”

“You and my mother, you practiced this ‘respect for nature’ together, didn’t you?”

“We did, to your father’s dismay.”

“Can you do magic?”

“Within the realms of my belief system, the rules of nature, and magical ethics. To start, as I said, whatever I send into the universe comes back to me times three, therefore, the words ‘and it harm none’ are, in some form, part of any spell. I can’t change the free will of another; if I try, I’m failing to grow psychologically and spiritually.”

“What can you do?”

“I can cast a spell so you find a solution to a problem, but no spell will
solve
your problem.
You
have to work at that. By the same token, I can do a spell so you find the right job, but if you don’t go job hunting, my spell is useless. I can cast a spell so you obtain your heart’s desire, but be careful what you wish for. Your heart’s desire may have a cost you’re not willing to pay.”