Dying for Mercy with Bonus Material (18 page)

W
rapped in a heavy sweater against the chill late-afternoon air, Valentina sat on the carved bench, staring at the fountain. The falling water was mesmerizing to watch. It sprayed upward and then cascaded down over the backs of the bronze tortoises that sunned themselves at the edge of the marble basin.

The tortoise and the hare,
thought Valentina, remembering the old fable that she’d been told as a child. The speedy, reckless rabbit was beaten by the steady, slow-moving tortoise. It was a lesson that she and Innis had tried to teach Rusty. Slow and steady won the race.

She was afraid Rusty hadn’t learned the lesson well enough. He took too many risks, and that generally wasn’t a good thing, especially for a young man who planned to go into the family business of politics. A foolish move, a dumb mistake, could come back to haunt you.

Valentina wondered when Rusty would be coming home this weekend. She had no desire to be one of those nagging mothers who wanted to know their offspring’s every move. But she found herself feeling needy. She didn’t want to be alone.

Getting up, she walked back into the house and went to the telephone.

“Oh, Eliza, hello,” she said with enthusiasm when Eliza answered. “It’s Valentina. Are you up here already?”

“Hi, Valentina,” said Eliza. “Yes, we got here after lunch. How are you doing?”

“I’m all right. I was calling to see if you and Mack would like to come over for a drink.”

Eliza hesitated, not wanting to disappoint her. “Honestly, Valentina, Mack flew in this morning, and it’s already after ten at night on his body clock. Can we possibly take a rain check?”

“Of course, I understand,” said Valentina. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Innis and I would be exhausted when we first came home from Europe. Anyway, you two have more to do with your time than spend your first night together with an old lady. How about lunch tomorrow? Would you like to come around noon?”

“We’ll be there,” said Eliza.

I
t could not be allowed to happen.

Aurelia could not be given the chance to realize what she had and turn the Pentimento pictures over to law enforcement. Even without having the pictures in her possession, she could remember them, so stealing them was not good enough.

If memory served, Aurelia owned a dog. And a dog had to be walked one last time before its owner slept for the night. All alone on the dark road, Aurelia would be vulnerable and unsuspecting. It would be the perfect opportunity to eliminate her as a threat.

No one would see.

The computer printout of the Instruments of the Passion that had provided the inspiration for Zack’s murder now provided inspiration for how to get rid of Aurelia—almost as dramatically as Innis had gotten rid of himself.

A
urelia slapped the side of her thigh.

“Come on, Midnight. Let’s go, boy.”

The border collie happily followed his mistress out the door, eager for the fresh air and exercise. He trotted in front of Aurelia, unleashed and confident about the route they would take. A noise coming from the bushes up ahead sent him bolting in pursuit of the squirrel or chipmunk he thought he would find there.

As she walked down the road, Aurelia pulled her fisherman-knit cardigan closer around her. It was time to get out her heavy winter coat, she thought. She couldn’t remember if she had even picked up the winter clothes from the dry cleaner after she’d dropped them off last spring. She’d have to check when she got back to the house.

She shivered at the sound of a twig snapping. Looking behind her, she searched with her flashlight, but she saw nothing. Aurelia turned and continued walking.

“Midnight!” she called out. “Where are you, boy? Come back.”

She could hear the rustling of leaves as the dog searched through the bushes for his quarry. The collie was going to emerge dirty and covered with grass and leaves. She was too tired and in no mood to give him a bath this late at night.

“I’m not kidding, Midnight!” she called. “Get back here.”

Her attention focused on the dog, and the air filled with the sound of her own voice, Aurelia didn’t sense the person approaching her from behind until the hammer came down on her head.

Aurelia’s body was quickly dragged to the side of the road and then deep into the underbrush.

The dog finally appeared, bounding from the bushes but slowing at the sight of his mistress lying in the leaves. Approaching her body, Midnight sniffed at her hair and sweater and nudged her shoulder with his snout. When he got no response, he licked her face with his long tongue, and a moment later he stretched out next to her, placing his head on her warm, still chest.

It was a short walk to Aurelia Patterson’s house. The laptop computer was sitting on the kitchen table. It didn’t take long to find the digital camera in the hall closet.

The killer walked out of the house with both of them—the sole owner of the images of Pentimento.

S
lipping from bed as quietly as she could, Eliza put on her robe and went downstairs. She set a pot of coffee brewing and turned on her computer to check the news of the morning. Satisfied that nothing big had happened overnight, she poured herself a cup of coffee, opened the French doors, and went out onto the slate patio.

The morning air was bracing. Eliza inhaled deeply, reveling in the sights and scents of autumn in the country. Colorful leaves lay scattered on the ground. An old stone fence surrounded the rear of the property, cordoning off a well-tended garden. She detected the faint aroma of lavender, the vestige of the plants the owner had placed near the foundation of the carriage house.

As she sipped the hot coffee, Eliza wondered how Janie was doing with the Cohens. She was tempted to call and see, but she decided to wait until later.
Don’t hover,
she told herself.

Going back inside, she heard Mack descending the stairs.

“Sleep well?” asked Eliza after they kissed.

“Like a baby,” said Mack. He looked mischievously into her eyes. “I wonder why.”

“I have no idea,” she said with mock innocence.

She pulled away and went to pour some coffee for him. “What do you want to do today?” she asked, handing him the cup.

“More of what we’ve been doing would suit me just fine.”

Eliza nodded, smiling. “And after that, I have a place I want to show you.”

“This is great exercise,” said Eliza.

“Yeah, but not nearly as good as the exercise we just had,” said Mack, putting his arm around her shoulder and kissing her on the forehead.

As they walked around the road that circled Tuxedo Lake, Eliza filled Mack in on all that had been happening and the details she knew so far. “I went to the spot on West Lake Road, but there was nothing out of the ordinary,” she said. “I want to go back there with you and see if I missed something.”

“Another set of eyes, at your service,” said Mack.

“That’s Pentimento,” said Eliza as they walked by the imposing Italianate mansion. “The Wheelock place.”

Mack whistled softly through his teeth. “You’ve got to be in a pretty sad state if living in a place like that doesn’t make you want to stick around.”

“That’s the operative word, isn’t it?” said Eliza. “Innis Wheelock had to be very sad to do what he did.”

“Or he just got carried away with his obsession with religion and St. Francis,” said Mack.

They continued walking, past a few more massive houses until the road straightened out and there were no buildings on either side.

“This is certainly a nice long stretch where a car could gather speed,” observed Mack. “If you drank too much or were distracted by a pretty woman in the car with you, it would be easy to lose control and crash into a tree.”

Eliza slowed as they reached the area indicated on the map. “This is it,” she said, holding out her arms.

They wandered around, kicking through leaves and vegetation, not sure what they were looking for.

After a while Eliza leaned against a large boulder. “Maybe this is a wild-goose chase,” she said.

“And this might be the goose,” Mack said excitedly as he squatted down at the base of a large old tree at the water’s edge. “Come here and see this.”

Eliza walked over to the tree that leaned slightly toward the lake. On the bottom of the trunk, at a point facing the water and not viewable from the road, a slab of brass, about an inch thick, a foot high, and a foot and a half wide was planted in the ground. It was in the shape of a pentagon, with nine slender rectangles protruding from the top of it. One of the rectangles stood tall and straight; the other eight were shorter, as if they had been broken off.

“What do you think this could be?” asked Mack.

“I’ve seen similar ones in antique shops. It looks like a large, old-fashioned doorstop,” said Eliza. “In the shape of a house.”

V
alentina answered the door herself.

“Welcome to Pentimento,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“We’re so happy to be here,” said Eliza as she handed a paper bag to Valentina. “These are some jars of Mrs. Garcia’s spicy peach preserves.”

“Oh, that’s so thoughtful. Thank you.” Valentina took hold of the gift with two hands and led Eliza and Mack to a small round table by one of the windows.

“I thought it would be nicer to sit here looking out at the lake rather than eating at that big table in the dining room,” she said.

The table was set with colorful hand-painted Italian pottery featuring the Wheelock family crest.

“These bowls are wonderful,” said Eliza.

“They were made for us in Deruta,” Valentina said wistfully. “Innis actually deserves all the credit. He worked with the pottery maker, and they came up with this unique design just for us.”

All three of them were quiet.

“He was such a gifted person,” Valentina whispered.

“He certainly was,” said Mack. “And so are you, Valentina. Anyone who has followed your career over the years knows that you two were a force to be reckoned with. You accomplished some wonderful things for the people of America.”

“That’s nice of you to say, Mack. But to be perfectly honest, without Innis I wouldn’t have accomplished much at all. Others helped, too, of course, but Innis called the shots.”

Bonnie entered the room carrying a tureen. She ladled corn chowder into the bowls and left a basket of fresh-baked bread on the table.

“Bonnie here has just been a lifesaver,” said Valentina. “She’s helping me until I can find a permanent replacement for Eunice—though I doubt I’ll ever really be able to replace her.” She nodded and smiled at Bonnie. “That will be all for now. Thank you.”

“I’ll be out in the aviary for a little while, Mrs. Wheelock,” said Bonnie. “I’m going to feed the birds.”

“Bringing that parrot some grapes?” Eliza asked, smiling. “My daughter told me all about it.”

“I know,” said Bonnie. “Each time I’ve gone out there, that bird is always squawking about grapes, but he never eats them. I don’t understand.”

“I wish Innis never got it in his head to build that aviary,” said Valentina. “It’s more trouble and money to maintain than it’s worth. But he loved the aviary at the Villa Borghese in Rome and wanted one of his own. Thank goodness he didn’t insist on making it as large or as grand.”

They ate their lunch, deliberately limiting the conversation to light topics. But after they were finished eating, Valentina was the one who brought Innis back into the conversation.

“You know, Zack Underwood’s murder has something to do with Innis’s death,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”

“What’s the connection?” asked Eliza.

“I don’t know,” said Valentina. “But at the lunch at the club on the afternoon he was killed, Zack told me that he thought Innis had left a message behind in a puzzle he’d planned. He told me about numbers on a pot in our greenhouse that he said led to the place where a car crash happened over two decades ago.”

“The one on West Lake Road?” asked Eliza.

Valentina seemed surprised. “How did you know about that?”

“Someone else actually told me about it,” said Eliza, always conscious of protecting her sources. “But Zack and I talked about it at the luncheon, too.”

“We took a walk to the spot this morning,” said Mack.

“You did?” asked Valentina.

“Yes, and we found something,” said Eliza. “We’re just not sure what it is.”

“Describe it for me,” said Valentina.

“Actually, we brought it with us,” said Eliza. “It’s in the car.”

“I’ll go get it,” offered Mack.

“Maybe we should go outside to see it,” said Eliza. “It’s covered with dirt.”

Valentina examined the tarnished brass object sitting on the floor of the car.

“We were thinking it resembled a house,” said Mack.

“A house with a lot of chimneys,” added Eliza.

Valentina straightened. “Why would Innis want to point to
that
house?” she mused softly.

“What house?” asked Mack.

“The old Heavener house,” said Valentina. “Nine Chimneys.”

They went back inside Pentimento. While they had coffee, Valentina told a story.

“Nine Chimneys was a beautiful, gracious old place that had been in the Heavener family since the early days of Tuxedo Park. It passed from one generation to the next, but unfortunately the family money ran out. Even more unfortunate was the fact that Fitzroy hadn’t really been brought up to go out and earn a living.

“So, as the bills mounted,” continued Valentina, “the Heaveners gradually had to let their servants go. Eventually things got so bad that they were living in just a few rooms and had closed the others off so they wouldn’t have to pay to heat them.”

“You said Nine Chimneys
was
a beautiful old place,” said Eliza. “What happened to it?”

“It burned to the ground,” said Valentina, putting down her coffee cup. “There was suspicion of arson, of course. But nothing was ever proven. Fitzroy and Unity moved into an apartment over the Black Tie Club and have been living off the insurance money ever since.”

“If Innis is directing us to something,” said Eliza, “why point to a house that’s not even there anymore?”

“What are you all talking about?”

The three of them turned to see Russell Wheelock standing in the doorway.

“Oh, Rusty, you’re home.” Valentina rose to meet her son and kissed him warmly on the cheek. “I’m so glad you’re here, dear.”

Russell shook hands with Eliza and Mack. They filled him in on the replica they’d found on West Lake Road.

Eliza felt comfortable leaving Valentina now that her son was with her. “I’d like to see for myself where Nine Chimneys once stood,” she said. “And see if we can’t figure out what Innis is trying to tell us.”