Hearse and Gardens (14 page)

“Let's go, Michael. That's one more seat I can give to my side of the family.” Paige retracted her claws before turning back to Byron. “Mummy wants you to redo the area around the duck pond. Would love it if you could fit us into your schedule.”

He said, “I'll have my assistant check my calendar. Send my regards to the family.”

Paige gave him a toothy smile—a horse toothy smile. She didn't acknowledge me, then walked away.

Michael said, “Bye, Meg. You look good.” He followed behind Paige like an obedient hound.

I needed a chill pill, or the steam coming out of my ears would cause my hair to frizz. Something about the two of them brought out the best in me—I was so darn happy they weren't in my life anymore.

“How do you know Paige?” Byron asked.

“Michael and I were once engaged. It's a long story and a short story at the same time. I really should scoot.”

“I'll walk you out.” He took my elbow and steered me through the crowd, nodding his head at a dozen celebs.

We exited the tent and he pulled me aside, bestowing a kiss on me that would please the archangel and the devil at the same time. It sure pleased me.

I didn't want the kiss to end, but it did when I heard, “Byron, my man. Where have you been hiding?”

Byron introduced me to Ollie Hollingsworth, and I was happy it was dark and ole Ollie couldn't see my red-blotched face. I was a little tongue-tied or should I say, Byron's and my tongue
had
been tied. Finally, I managed a squeaky, “Hello.”

Ollie continued, “I bought a new polo horse. Next time you're in Sag Harbor, stop by and take her for a spin. She's a beaut.”

As he walked away, Byron said, “Pompous ass. You should see how he treats his horses.”

“Do you play polo?”

“I dabble.”

I could tell he was being modest. He probably had a
room full of trophies. I'd been to a few matches in Bridgehampton with my ex-fiancé. I had to pretend I was his trophy, smiling and giving him adoring glances, wearing a flowery chiffon dress and a huge hat that made me look like I had a pinhead, while Michael tried to reel in advertising accounts for
American Home and Garden
. Ahh. Those
weren't
the days.

We walked to the circular drive where my taxi was waiting amidst the super-exotic luxury cars or environmentally savvy smart cars.

“There's my ride. Thanks for the invite.”

“You're not taking a taxi. I'll have my driver bring you home.”

“I'm good. But thanks.”

“I insist.”

He went over to the waiting taxi and handed the driver a roll of bills, and the taxi pulled away.

A Mercedes sedan, hybrid, no less, pulled up.

“I really don't want your driver to go all the way to Montauk. What if you want to leave?”

“Don't worry about me. I still have a few people I need to talk to.”

I'm sure he did—female people. “Well, thank you.” I got on my tiptoes to give him a peck, but he swung me over his left arm and dipped me backward. Then he came in for a landing that had me seeing stars. Seriously, there was a big star standing two feet away. I couldn't help but take a peek, then I relaxed into his lips. A great finale to a great evening.

Byron walked me to his car and opened the rear door.

I said, “No
Driving Miss Daisy
for me.” I got in the
front passenger seat. As we pulled away, I blew him a kiss out the window.

Byron blew one back. I felt like a giddy teen at her high school prom.

When Byron's driver turned around in the circle in front of the mansion, I thought I saw a familiar silhouette. One I'd seen many times on the beach in front of my rental. Patrick Seaton. And he wasn't alone. He and a woman stepped under the lamplight, and before I could see their faces clearly, we pulled away.

Of course, it made sense a famous author would attend the film festival. I never pictured him anywhere but the beach: in his solitary cottage, spending hours reading and writing, with no social contact because of his malaise concerning the death of his wife and child.

But what if I was wrong?

*   *   *

When I walked into the cottage, it looked like a blizzard had rained down from the ceiling. The entire great room floor was covered in shredded paper towels. Jo stood in the center of the room and looked royally ticked off.

What a prima donna. I thought cats were self-sufficient?

I opened the door to the porch so Jo could go potty and went to work cleaning up the mess. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Jo with something in her mouth. She dragged it with her to the litter box, kneaded it a few times, then took a tinkle next to my TWO-HUNDRED-DOLLAR top!

Jo seemed to be making a statement on not having full VIP access to the litter box.

After I cleaned the litter box and tossed my top in a bag, I grabbed the box and carried it upstairs. Jo followed me. Once again she stretched out on the man-side of my bed.

And I thought she'd want to hide, worried about my wrath.

I placed the litter box at the bottom of the small closet in the bathroom and took out my towels and linens, tossing them on top of the antique upholstered bench with rolled arms at the end of my bed. I was too exhausted to do anything in an organized way. I glanced at my snoring bed partner. Too bad this was a rental. If it weren't, I'd add a cat door to the screened porch.

Alas, in a few months, when my lease ran out, we might have to live on the street. Especially if the court ruled in Gordon Miles's favor. Which seemed likely. Or I'd have to find a rental for myself and a twenty-three-pound feline terror. Not an easy feat in the Hamptons. I knew how much Jo weighed because the day I brought her home, I stepped on the bathroom scale holding the crate with her inside and then reweighed myself and the crate without her inside.

Woe was me.

Saturday morning, I knocked at the outside kitchen door at Sandringham. Ingrid answered, a mug of coffee in her hand and a pair of slippers on her feet. “Meg. Have you come to see the patient?”

“Yes, but I wanted to talk to you before I went to see her. How did it happen?”

Elle wasn't clumsy. She could hang and wire a chandelier on a twelve-foot ladder without anyone's help.

“It was just some worn carpeting on the central staircase. It really should be replaced. Don't worry. We're taking good care of her.”

I looked at the pan of out-of-the-oven Danish cooling on the granite. “I'm sure you are.”

Ingrid poured me a cup of coffee, remembering how I liked it, light and unsweetened, then handed it to me. “The doctor just came. No broken bones, but her ankle is sprained
and he gave her a soft cast and some pain pills. She and Harrison were singing show tunes the last time I saw her.”

“Well, that's a relief.”

She sat on a stool at the counter, patted the seat next to her, and I sat.

She said, “I assume you heard the good news about Harrison's competency hearing? It's like he has a new lease on life. Brandy weaned him off all the meds his charlatan psychiatrist had him on—just in time for the hearing.”

“If Harrison dies, does Celia inherit?”

“I know from Brandy, who's seen Harrison's will, that Celia only gets a pittance when he dies. They signed a prenup. In fact, Brandy and I each get more than Celia when he passes. Liv gets the remainder.”

“So that's why Celia wanted Uncle Harry deemed bonkers, so she could have power of attorney and spend all his money while he was alive.”

“Sounds like it. And it's only been recently that Harrison's financial guys put a limit on Celia's spending. The last de Kooning she bought was way overpriced. They suspected she was getting a kickback.”

“Uncle Harry lets her buy Willem de Koonings?”

“The money comes from the Falks Foundation. All of the modern art that's been bought in the last twenty years is part of the foundation. When Harrison dies, the art will be donated to the Museum of Modern Art. Celia worked at MoMA and then was hired as a curator and cataloger of Harrison's modern art collection. The classical art stays in the family after his death.

I took a sip of coffee. “Speaking of modern art, what do you know about Tansy, Harrison's second wife and
Pierce's mother? I heard she was a muse for a lot of the artists who lived here.”

“Tansy took off when Pierce was two, after Harrison divorced her. Harrison adored her but couldn't put up with her wild lifestyle. My mother told me Tansy followed an artist she met in the South of France to an art farm in Wisconsin. She ended up living in Milwaukee, of all places, for a couple years before she passed away from lung cancer. I think Pierce was ten when she died.”

“An art farm?”

“Like a commune for artists—artists who couldn't get it out of their heads the seventies were over. Before Tansy left Montauk she was almost as famous as Andy Warhol. She was the inspiration for Warhol's Aqua Net painting. That's why Warhol gave it to Harrison. Tansy was not only Aqua Net's star model for their magazine ads, but she used the stuff like it was going out of style. She carried a can wherever she went: in her bag, in her car. After Tansy died, Pierce obsessed about the Aqua Net by Warhol. Harrison kept it out of sight in a room on the third floor for the opposite reason; he didn't want to be reminded of Tansy.”

I said, “Did Nathan know his wife, Helen, was having an affair with Pierce before they disappeared?”

Ingrid busied herself with her napkin. “You'd have to ask him. But I think Nathan and the rest of Montauk knew about their affair, including Pierce's wife, Sonya. Remember everyone was young at the time and Pierce had a reputation for being a cheat. He only married Sonja because she was pregnant with Liv.”

“Did you know Pierce?”

“I knew of him,” she said.

Everyone thought Helen Morrison was Pierce's killer. I wasn't sure. How could she disappear without a trace for twenty years? But more importantly, how could the Warhol not surface after all this time?

“Brandy seems pretty loyal to Uncle Harry. How long has she been at Sandringham?”

“After her father, who used to be Harrison's assistant, died, she moved in and became Harrison's assistant. She took night nursing classes after Harrison's first stroke. She also spent a lot of time here as a child while her father worked with Harrison. Nathan said Brandy's mother was a raging alcoholic and her father would bring Brandy here to keep her out of harm's way. Nathan remembers when he was young Brandy's mother would drive over to Sandringham drunk as a skunk, dressed in her night clothes.”

Ingrid reached for the pot and topped off my coffee, then she took a pastry off the tray and fed it to me like I was a baby robin.

From behind a mouthful of ecstasy, I mumbled, “What's in that?” The warm and gooey center dripped down my chin.

“Roasted fig with brie and a dash of red pepper. Cayenne is a good antioxidant. It's been used in Native American cooking and medicines for centuries and contains vitamin C, B-6, E, potassium, and manganese.”

“I would have never thought of putting it in a sweet pastry.”

She smiled.

“Isn't there something Uncle Harry can do about his current wife, Celia?”

“Between you and me, he had his attorney here yesterday. I have a feeling he's filing for divorce.”

I had to ask. “Who's his lawyer?”

“Justin Marguilles. He's been the family attorney for years.”

Of course he has. “Was Marguilles Uncle Harry's attorney at the competency hearing?”

“Yes. And I heard he did a stellar job of it.”

Darn. Not only was Gordon Miles a good guy, it looked like Justin Marguilles was one too.

I dabbed my chin with a napkin. “Did you know Celia and Pierce were in high school together?”

“Really? No, I didn't. I'm surprised Nathan never mentioned it. I always wondered why there was such bad blood between Nathan and Celia. I bet it had something to do with high school. Nathan and Pierce were inseparable until the forged-Pollock scandal. At first Nathan didn't believe Pierce could have sold the forgery, but when Harrison confirmed it, he had no choice. After the forgery, Nathan should have seen the writing on the wall when it came to Pierce and his wife. Once a cheat, always a cheat.”

Ingrid was right. I thought about my cheating ex-fiancé.

I stuffed the last bite of pastry in my mouth and said, “I better go check on Elle, before she thinks I've forgotten about her. Thanks for the food and the gossip.”

Before I left the kitchen, Ingrid gave me a plate of Danish to bring to Elle. After she tasted one, I had a feeling Elle wasn't ever going to want to leave Sandringham.

*   *   *

I scared Richard in the secret stairway. I'd never seen a man jump in such an effeminate way. “Sorry. Going up to see Elle via the fun staircase.”

Richard gave me a snooty look—he'd apparently been learning from Celia.

“Do you know what room they're in?”

He kept walking, not bothering to turn around. “She's two doors down from Master Falks's suite—on the right.”

Had I heard him right? Master Falks or Mister Falks? Either way, it was out of character for him to show so much respect for Uncle Harry. Unless now that Celia lost the competency hearing, Richard decided to switch sides.

When I walked in the room, Elle looked like she was in a production of
Once Upon a Mattress
, she had so many fluffy, downy pillows and comforters surrounding her, it took me a minute to locate her face. She was fast asleep. Her right ankle was propped on a pillow. Darn. How would she drive her pickup?

Liv sat next to the bed, flipping through the pages of a brown leather journal.

I said, “How nice of you to keep Elle company.”

“Oh, she's great. I feel bad about the stairs.”

“Should I wake her?”

Liv said, “You can try. She's on some powerful muscle relaxants and pain pills.”

I looked at the journal in Liv's hands. “Is that the journal you told me about?”

“Yes. I'm pretty excited. I've recognized most of my father's drawings of Sandringham and found two revolving cubbies in what used to be the playroom. And guess what was behind them?”

“What?”

“Tin Easter eggs filled with diamond stud earrings and
jelly beans. I bet my father hid them for me.” Her eyes sparkled with the possibilities.

I looked at her ears. The tiny earrings shone almost as brilliantly as her eyes.

“I'll show you how I found them.” She opened the journal to the center and pointed to a black ink drawing. Gibberish was written at the base of each cabinet.

“Look.” She led me to a full-length mirror next to a magnificent painted French armoire. She turned the book upside down and held it to the mirror. “See.”

I did. The gibberish turned into the words, “Eat me.”

Her face was flushed, adding to her natural beauty. “I bet this was going to go in the book for my fifth birthday. I was born the second week in March—around Eastertime.”

Liv might have been right, but I couldn't get over the fact that Pierce had once again plagiarized a work of fiction. This time it was
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
. Liv flipped to another page. “These next four pages have me totally stumped. I don't know of any of these rooms, secret or otherwise. Take a look at the décor.”

She handed me the book and I examined the pages. I thought the room in the first drawing looked subterranean. There were no windows, and the furniture looked Deco or Nouveau—from the '20s or '30s. There was a bar with stools, and a few oak barrels sat against the wall. The second drawing was of a long winding tunnel cut from rock, with torches attached to the walls. I tried to think of what novel Pierce was borrowing from and could only come up with Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein
, but, of course, that could be because I had Patrick Seaton's book
and the passage on Mary's husband, Percy Shelley, on my mind.

The third page showed a wooden arched door with a small iron-grated window, built into a stone wall, possibly something out of
The Count of Monte Cristo
or
Les Misérables
. The fourth page gave me the clue I needed. It was an exterior shot of the shoreline, not typical for Pierce: a sandy beach, tall grass, and a mansion on top of a cliff. But the mansion wasn't Sandringham. Not even Sandringham before the modern addition was added. The mansion wasn't made out of bricks, but clapboard. Whoa. I thought I had it.

Liv must have seen something on my face. “Tell me, tell me!”

“I think these pages represent Nathan's ancestral home before the fire.”

“Morrison Manor. How do you know about the manor?”

“Nathan told Elle about it at your father's wake. And then Byron Hughes . . . Do you know him?”

“Of course. Everyone knows him.”

“Well, Byron is planning to landscape the area Nathan's family used to own and turn it into a park for the town of Montauk.”

“I've heard the story of the fire. And it makes sense my father would draw Morrison Manor, seeing he and Uncle Nathan were best friends since childhood.”

“Uncle?”

She laughed. “We aren't related, but that's what I've called him ever since I could talk.”

“Hey, what are you two planning?” Elle was up on her elbows.

I said, “Hello, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Liv, don't let Meg sweet-talk you. She has a knack for getting into trouble.”

Elle looked adorable with the little chip on her front tooth. It went perfectly with her pixie haircut. I stood by the bed. “Looks like you're the one who got into trouble.”

“Oh, this little thing? I'm fine.” She wiggled her toes at the end of the soft cast and grimaced. “Holy mother of bleep!”

I helped adjust her pillows. “Relax, missy. You aren't going anywhere. Look what I've brought you.” I put a Danish on a plate and handed it to her. “This will cure what ails you.”

Elle took a bite. “I've died and gone to heaven.”

I offered one to Liv.

“Already had two. But thanks.”

Before Liv left the room, she said, “If you want, I can come get you in a few minutes and we can go over to the gatehouse and visit Uncle Nathan. You should see the gatehouse. It's the perfect size. And I know how you love cottages.”

I gave her a resounding, “Yes!”

Elle and I chatted until she dozed off. She told me she had one of her premonitions before she tripped on the stairs. But she thought I was the one in danger after I'd called her and told her about my missing two-hundred-dollar top.

Wrong again, O Great Swami.