Hearse and Gardens (17 page)

Ingrid Anderson
–Midforties. Live-in cook. Distant cousin to Uncle Harry's second wife and Pierce's mother, Tansy. Doesn't like Celia. Fond of Liv and Kate. Great cook. Looks
like my mother, don't let that take away from her being a suspect. Reminds Harrison of second wife, Tansy, the reason he hired her. She gets more in Harrison's current will than Celia.

Richard Challis
–Early forties. Hired by Celia. Majordomo/chauffeur. Pals with Celia and makes fun of Harrison. Had argument with Brandy during Pierce's wake. Richard is having affair with Celia.

Brandy
–late-thirties. Uncle Harry's personal assistant then took classes to become his nurse. Has been coming to Sandringham since small. Helped get Uncle Harry off drugs so he could pass competency hearing. She gets more in Harrison's current will than Celia. Doesn't like Celia. And had some kind of argument with Richard at Pierce's wake.

Nathan Morrison
–Midforties. Neighbor. Helen's husband. Grew up with Pierce. Best friends with Pierce until the Pollock scandal. Lives in gatehouse on next property toward the lighthouse. His family's mansion, Morrison Manor, burned down in the late 1920s. The land, except the gatehouse, was sold to the town of Montauk. Has motive for killing Pierce and possibly his wife, Helen. Close to Harrison, Liv, and Ingrid.

Helen Morrison
–Midforties. Nathan's wife, who everyone assumed took off with Pierce and the Warhol. Killed Pierce?

When I was done with my note cards, I rubber banded them together and put them inside the antique coffee crate I'd turned sideways and used as an end table. Jo sneakily slithered over to my vacated chair and went to town,
giving herself a head-to-tail lick down. I didn't want to try to put the towel underneath her for fear she'd claw the leather in retaliation. I'd let sleeping cats lie.

The tube with the plans for Little Grey was still unopened. I took the tube from the end table and sat on the sofa.

Oh, Little Grey, what is to become of you?

I spread Byron's plans on top of my coffee table. The table was actually three vintage suitcases stacked on top of each other. Each suitcase was filled with old issues of my favorite home and garden magazines. Small spaces demanded out-of-the-box storage solutions. I looked at the plans and was thrilled Byron got me. He really got me. I closed my eyes and envisioned my little plot of land. I was there. I could see it. I could smell it. I would bring the plans with me to the folly to go over them in more detail.

After I rolled up the plans and put them back in their tube, I opened Patrick Seaton's book and read about tortured poet number three: John Keats.

I could tell Keats was one of Patrick Seaton's favorites. Keats's story was sad: he was orphaned by fourteen, ripped off by a trustee of his grandmother's estate, and died at twenty-five. These details were eclipsed by the selected verses Patrick had chosen: all upbeat and full of life.

When I finished the chapter on Keats, I put down the book and said “screw it” to bringing a weapon with me, and went down to the beach. There was a huge full moon, and the ocean looked like it had been sprinkled with fairy dust. A
Peter Pan
moon.

Peter Pan
was my favorite childhood fairy tale. Of course, in my dreams, I was Wendy. My favorite part of
the Disney cartoon was the scene with the open dormer window, full moon in the background, and Peter flying into the nursery. My obsession with window seats had a lot to do with
Peter Pan
, and it was only reinforced after reading the book.

Who the hell ever wanted to grow up?

Not me.

I was thinking along the same lines as Sir James Barrie, the author of
Peter Pan
, so I found a pointed piece of driftwood, and left a quote by Keats on Patrick Seaton's beach:

My Imagination is a Monastery

And I am its Monk.

Even after my beach meditation Sunday morning, I felt slightly blue. I'd called Elle and she sounded good. Still in pain and ordered by the household to stay put. She asked me to check in on Mabel and Elle's Curiosities. I told her I would. Sunday was the best day for hitting the picker's trail. There were a plethora of garage and estate sales but no Elle to share them with. Even the lure of having Elle's pickup couldn't get me motivated. So instead, I headed to Sag Harbor.

Mabel and Elle's Curiosities hadn't yet opened, and I took advantage and backed the pickup to the carriage house doors. I went inside, put Billie Holiday on the Edison gramophone, and looked at what needed to go into Rebecca Crandle's cottage. Without Elle's help, I had to stick to smaller pieces of furniture. We made a good team. I had never realized how big a part of my life Elle had
filled since I moved to Montauk. We were friends when we worked at
American Home and Garden
, but between spending time with Michael and the magazine's twenty-four seven demands, we never had much time to hang out. It was funny how important girlfriends were when you were single and how easily they could fall by the wayside when you were in a relationship. I promised myself I wouldn't let that happen again.

The pickup was packed and I was happy with my pickings. Before leaving for Rebecca Crandle's, I went inside Elle's shop.

“Hello, Ms. Barrett. To what, on this glorious morning, do I owe the pleasure of your company?” Maurice, Elle's star salesclerk, asked. “Is there a wounded mother bird that's afraid her nest will fall apart without you to supervise?”

“Ha. You know better than I. She trusts you completely. Or is it ‘you know better than me,' Professor?”

“Actually, both are correct, although I'd go with ‘I.' ‘You know better than I know' sounds smoother than ‘you know better than me know,' when you add the second ‘know.'”

Maurice reminded me of Rex Harrison from the movie
My Fair Lady.
He was tall and thin, somewhere in his late forties. He had an English accent and perfect Professor Higgins diction: The rain in Spain . . . which I had him repeat—ad nauseam. I would respond in guttural cockney groans like Audrey Hepburn in the beginning of the movie. Maurice would make one little change to my appearance: cut a lock of hair or wrap a scarf just the right way and I'd be transformed—Eliza Doolittle–style.

He was also an Edith Head groupie and had worked at
the shop when Elle's great-aunt Mabel was at the helm. Great-Aunt Mabel spent her early life as the assistant to the famous Hollywood fashion designer. Maurice's favorite quote of Edith's was, “The cardinal sin is not being badly dressed but wearing the right thing in the wrong place.”
Don't you know it.
I thought of Pierce's wake and my red dress and six-inch red-soled heels.

Today, Maurice just took a tissue and wiped the lipstick off my teeth.

Why hadn't I used him as my stylist for the Barkers' party? It was probably his idea for Elle to loan me the cashmere cape and Birkin.

We had no time for chitchat because the shop was filling up fast. I went into the White Room and took out a few choice items to bring to Rebecca Crandle's cottage. I snipped off the price tags and taped them to a ledger Elle kept behind the counter so she'd know what I'd taken.

I helped a customer decide which vintage jewelry piece to buy. Not my expertise, but I thought the emerald green rhinestone and aurora borealis clasp bracelet, signed Schiaparelli, would look awesome with her red hair. Sold. For four hundred dollars.

Oh, what I could buy at an estate sale for the same amount. Elle owned an Elsa Schiaparelli skirt from the '30s which she never wore because it was priceless. The lobster print on the skirt was designed by Schiaparelli's friend, surrealist artist Salvador Dalí.

I said, “Cheerio,” to Maurice and left for Hither Hills.

The down-in-the-dumps feeling wouldn't leave my gut. I pulled the truck over in East Hampton, across the street from Grimes House Antiques. I felt an urge to peruse the
antique paper section. I wanted to see the old landscape plans for Sandringham and Morrison Manor that Byron had been looking at the last time I was here.

Thank God, there was no Tara when I walked into the shop. Maybe she'd been fired and that was why I saw her in the kitchen at Mickey's, wearing her designer hairnet. Instead, Rita sat behind the counter cleaning silver with a polish-coated, nubby hand mitt. She nodded in my direction, which was more than she'd ever done in the past. Seeing me with Byron on my last visit must have raised me up a peg or two. Okay, one. Maybe.

I looked through a bin with rolled ephemera and finally found the blueprints. I saw why he didn't buy them. Eight hundred dollars each.

A couple walked into the shop, and they must have been good customers because Rita took off her polishing mitt and went to the front of the store with a rare smile.

I made sure Rita's back was to me and unrolled the first blueprint of Morrison Manor on the low table meant for this exact purpose—well, not my purpose, but a potential buyer's purpose. I grabbed four books from the case next to me and used them to hold down each corner of the plans. I hunched over the blueprint and twisted my body, blocking Rita's view. I shot off a dozen pictures with my cell phone, then removed the books and put the blueprint back in the bin. Then I did the same with the Sandringham blueprint.

When I was getting ready to leave, guilt crept in, causing me to purchase an antique brass inkwell with its original glass ink reservoir and quill-tip pen for sixty-five dollars. I doubted the quill pen was an antique, but it would be perfect on Rebecca Crandle's desk. I didn't feel too bad
about taking pictures of the blueprints because when Rita rang up the sale, she acted like she was doing me a favor. She probably wondered how I found the least expensive item in her shop.

As I stepped out of the shop, I body-slammed into Byron Hughes.

He laughed.

I was mortified.

The bag with the inkwell slipped from my hand. He caught it midair.

“Fancy meeting you here.” He handed me back the bag.

My body shook from our impact—and not in a bad way. “Yes. I found something to put in a client's cottage.” I held up the bag.

“I came back for the Morrison Manor plans. The committee agreed to take money from the fund to pay for them. I had to promise to cut corners some other way.”

Beads of perspiration bloomed on my upper lip.

“Why don't you put your bag in your car. I'll make my purchase and we can grab lunch.”

“Uh. Sure.” I was so articulate.

A few minutes later, Byron led me down a back alley. In East Hampton, back alleys were still something to be afraid of. Not because they were dark and seamy but because they held tiny exquisite shops and restaurants with exquisite prices. Get trapped in one, and you were lucky to come out with only one new coat on your back and an empty wallet in your handbag.

Chez Claudette had enough room for only six tables. One had a reserved placard and as soon as we walked in,
it was removed by an older man in jeans, a button-down oxford, and a suit coat.

He said, “Mr. Hughes, what a nice surprise.”

We sat and he presented us each with a handwritten menu. We had four choices.

Byron didn't even look at the menu. “We'll both have the fresh fish plate.”

Oh no. Was the honeymoon over? I hated it when men ordered for women. What if I had a fish allergy? Or just plain didn't like fish? He hadn't even looked in my direction.

The waiter went to grab my menu. I put my hand on his. “Scratch the fish plate. I'll have the beet salad with goat cheese.”

I didn't feel I'd won because Byron immediately said, “Bring us each a beet salad and the fish.”

I was going to press it further, but my cell phone rang. It was Elle's melody, the
Perry Mason
theme, so I answered.

“Meg. You have to come quick to Sandringham. Something horrible has happened!”

“Elle, are you okay?”

“I'm fine, but Kate and Liv aren't. They're both missing. And they didn't sleep in their beds last night.”

I explained to Byron and he insisted on following me to Sandringham, but I told him I'd call after I found out more.

Detective Shoner's Lexus blocked the entrance to the estate, so I had to leave Elle's pickup on the lane outside the gate.

I looked ahead. Celia stood on the front portico dressed in a silky robe, her arms clasped around her chest, talking to Detective Shoner with tear-filled eyes.

When I reached Detective Shoner, I touched his sleeve. “Can I come in? I want to see Elle. She called me.”

He turned to Celia. “Mrs. Falks, come inside and tell me all the places you've searched.”

I followed Celia and Detective Shoner into the foyer. We trooped up the central staircase to the second floor. When we reached Uncle Harry's suite, Elle was sitting outside on a chair.

Before I could get to her, Detective Shoner put his fingers under her chin. “You okay?”

She looked at him. “Yes. Thanks for coming.”

Detective Shoner went inside Uncle Harry's room with Celia.

When Brandy came out of Uncle Harry's room, her face was as pink as her sweater. “Celia's always ordering me out. Either I'm Harrison's caretaker or I'm not. And I don't want
her
anywhere near him.” She stomped down the winding staircase.

I said to Elle, “Isn't she a little hot under the collar?”

I retrieved the pair of crutches from the guest room that the doctor had left for Elle, and brought them to her. I helped her to a standing position, then we both went to her room. I closed the door. “So, what happened?”

“Ingrid came to bring me breakfast and asked if I'd seen Liv and Kate. Which I hadn't. She went to check and neither one of them had slept in their beds.”

“Couldn't they have fallen asleep watching a late-night movie in one of the dozens of rooms at Sandringham?”

“Richard searched the entire place. Their cars are here. And their handbags.”

“How about the grounds? Maybe they went horseback riding or over to the gatehouse?”

“Checked. And checked.”

I helped Elle back into bed and adjusted her pillows, including the one for her ankle. Elle asked if I'd go to Sag Harbor in the morning to pick up Maurice so he could bring her home. She had a bad feeling about staying at Sandringham—ever the dyslexic fortune-teller.

There wasn't much I could do at the estate about the
missing girls, but I had to do something. I got directions from Elle to Liv's and Kate's rooms. I opened the guest room door and peered down the corridor in the direction of Uncle Harry's room. The coast was clear.

I went to Kate's room first. It was exactly as I pictured. Both rooms to the suite were painted bloodred. The walls showcased modern art posters, all with a fashion theme. Correction, as I looked closer, I noticed they were signed and numbered lithographs. It was apparent the outer room was used as a sewing room. Fabric covered every inch of the floor. The light to the sewing machine was on. A gray piece of material was clamped under the machine's silver foot, a needle poised above, as if waiting for Kate to return any second.

In the bedroom, Kate's bed was made, but that was as far as it went. It looked like the Long Island Express, the hurricane from 1938, had dropped by for a visit. I peeked inside the bathroom and pulled open the heavy rippled glass shower door, praying I wouldn't find a
Psycho
-induced crime scene. I didn't. Outside the shower sat a pair of sandy work boots. The boots were still wet with a chalky demarcation where the saltwater line on the leather ended.

My head and shoulders were under Kate's bed, my nose next to what I hoped weren't a pair of her thongs, when Detective Shoner said, “Anything interesting, Ms. Barrett?”

I had found a small pink jewelry box under a stack of magazines. I stuck it under my armpit before I backed out. I stood. “Um. Nope. But it's hard to tell in this mess.”

“Did you think you might find Kate hiding under her bed?”

I palmed the box and stuck it in my back pocket, making
a good show of brushing lint and dust bunnies from my shirt. “Not really. Leave no stone unturned, my father always says. Any news?”

“No. And we can't do anything officially until they've been missing for twenty-four hours.”

“Well, it was nice of you to come when Elle called.”

His cheeks flushed. “By the way, Ms. Barrett, what room is Elle staying in?”

“Second door on the left toward Uncle Harry's, I mean Mr. Falks's, room.”

Instead of following him to Elle's guest room, I turned left in the direction of Liv's suite.

Liv's suite was warm and welcoming. The sitting room had a large oak library desk flanked with bookcases. There was a feminine club chair with an ottoman, an antique floor lamp, and an empire side table. Both the sitting room and bedroom had fireplaces. The bedroom fireplace was huge with a marble mantel. By the room's grandeur, I had a feeling the suite had been Liv's father's. There was a masculine/feminine aura to it.

On my way out, I spied Liv's inhaler on the desk in the sitting room.

Liv had told me Celia had taken two second-floor suites and renovated them into her own apartment-like space. I figured, while I was snooping, I might as well check out Celia's suite down the opposite hallway from Liv's, Uncle Harry's, and Kate's. When I got to the double doors, I pulled down on the gold door handles.
Locked.
There was even a keypad on the wall for security. None of the other rooms in the mansion had alarm keypads. Now I was really dying to get inside.

I went to Elle's guest room to say good-bye, but she was asleep. I didn't think she was dreaming cotton-candy dreams because there were worry lines on her forehead.

Brandy walked out of Uncle Harry's room with a tray of dirty dishes. I waited until she took the staircase down to the first floor. When I saw the coast was clear, I crept down the hall and stopped in front of the open door to her suite.

I stepped into Brandy's suite. It had traditional antique furniture, but anything with fabric, including the curtains, was in a pale pink. No flowery prints, just pink. I peeked in her bedroom and saw a crocheted afghan made out of pink granny squares draped on a rocking chair by the window. The bedroom window faced a western view of the ocean and the bungalow in which we'd found Pierce's skeleton. It seemed so eerie that he had been so close to his loved ones all these years.

In the sitting room, an armoire held a key in the lock. Too tempting to resist. I turned the key and opened it. Inside were Brandy's folded sweaters. At the bottom of the cabinet was a small white suitcase. A locked suitcase. It looked like one of Elle's “train” cases, only flatter. I thought I heard someone coming down the hallway. I quickly closed the cabinet door, turned the key, and exited. I decided I might as well explore the third floor. Maybe I'd find a hidden alcove or revolving bookcase that might lead to Liv and Kate?

Just for fun, I took Uncle Harry's secret elevator up to the third floor. The hallway was carpeted in the same shade of burgundy as the second floor. Before the modern addition, the main house followed a simple rectangular floor plan. Each level had the winding
Gone with the Wind
staircase in the center. There were rooms interspersed between the two long hallways on the east and west. On the shorter northern hallways on the second and third levels were two cozy turret rooms. Celia's modern gallery covered the southern walls on the first and second levels. If you slid the panels on the first and second floors, you got oceanfront views through the gallery's windows.

If Uncle Harry divorced Celia, would he keep the modern addition or bulldoze it? And if they did divorce, what would happen to Kate without Ingrid?

Most of the rooms on the third floor were locked or looked unused. I'd already been to the Pierce gallery, hoping when I walked in I'd find Liv and Kate playing a game of Monopoly, but the huge room was empty—with Pierce's sketches cold looking and unwelcoming.

A door was unlocked and I knew it was Ingrid's for two reasons, it was tastefully decorated and there were pages stacked on her desk next to a printer: the manuscript to her cookbook. I looked at the top page—Short Ribs Braised in Cabernet and Cognac. I really would love to see Ingrid and my father in a cook-off. In the past, I'd wager my every last cent on my father, but since meeting Ingrid, I wasn't so sure.

The third-floor rooms didn't have sitting rooms, but Ingrid's room was huge. I had a feeling it had once been a schoolroom. The colors chosen were sea colors: pale teals, aquamarine, frosty blues, and sand white. And for a pop of color, the occasional coral red.

On the eastern side of the room was a line of floor-to-ceiling windows, showcasing a priceless panorama of the Atlantic Ocean, towering cliffs, and the Montauk Point
Lighthouse. Instead of a window seat, Ingrid had placed a latte-colored cushioned chaise next to the row of windows. There was a luxurious seafoam green throw draped across the back of the chaise and a book splayed open.

Feeling like a voyeur, something I hadn't felt in Kate's and Liv's rooms, I checked out the title. It was Julia Child's
My Life in France
. My father's fave.

Everything in the room seemed just as I thought. Or maybe not?

Peeking out from under Ingrid's bed was a photo album. I picked it up and opened it. On the first page of the album there was an eight-by-ten photo of a classroom in an artist's studio space. Students were behind their easels and in front of them, sitting on a stool on top of a dais, was a young Ingrid—a scantily clad Ingrid, wearing a toga.

When I looked at the faces of the students, I saw two familiar ones—no, make that three: Celia, Richard, and Georgia from The Old Man and the Sea Books. I didn't have any idea that Richard had been around before Pierce's disappearance. Richard had lied to the police. I took out my cell phone and took a picture of the photo, closed the book, and exited the room.

I patted myself on the back when I found the entry to the secret staircase on the third floor. I'd known where it was located, but I didn't know how to open it until I tipped the small Aristotle head bust forward on its hinge and the alcove swung forward. I took the stairs and paused at the second floor. I considered checking in on Uncle Harry, but I didn't have anything new to add to Liv and Kate's whereabouts and didn't want to upset him. I went down to the
first floor. At the bottom of the stairwell, I pulled the brass knob.

Nathan and Ingrid stood in the middle of the kitchen in a hot embrace.

I quickly closed the panel, then made as much noise as possible before I reopened it. Ingrid held a teacup in her hand and Nathan looked like he was fixing a leg to the farm table.

Awkward. Maybe I didn't know Ingrid as well as I thought I did. I had to keep reminding myself just because she looked like my mother, didn't mean she had a pure heart like my mother. I waved good-bye and exited out the front door in case I had a fit of nervous giggles. I hoped Ingrid knew what she was doing. Helen was number one on my list as Pierce's killer. If Helen hadn't killed Pierce, then Nathan would be my next guess. Celia was in third place. Maybe she still had a high school crush on Pierce and caught him with Helen? Sonya Falks, Pierce's wife, would be my fourth guess. She had the same motive as Celia. Brandy and Richard were tied. Leaving Ingrid and Uncle Harry as the least likely. As I knew from past experience, it could be anyone.

Instead of leaving the estate, I wanted to take a walk on the rocky beach beneath the cliffs of Sandringham and head in the direction of Nathan's former ancestral land. Something urged me on to check out the view of Nathan's family's estate from the shore. I knew Liv was obsessed with her father's journal and the drawing of the house on the cliff. Maybe Liv wanted to check it out for herself, and Liv and Kate went to investigate and got trapped by the tide.

I walked toward the Sandringham garage. The grounds were quiet. With all the recent news and our discovery of Pierce's skeleton and the mention of Sandringham and Harrison Falks's wealth, I prayed someone hadn't kidnapped the girls. Richard had hidden my Jeep behind a huge pine tree on the south side of the garage. The door was unlocked. The key was in the ignition. I got inside the Jeep and took off my good boots and put on the hiking boots I used for seal walks at Montauk Point State Park. They were similar to the pair I'd seen next to Kate's shower. I removed my hearing aids and laid them on the console, just in case a big wave hit me and they got water damaged. I took the car key with me and locked the door.

To my left was a side door to the garage. I checked if it was open.

It was.

The garage was long and narrow. Liv had told me before Celia came into the picture, the garage had been a horse stable. Celia sure had her fingers in a lot of renovations. “Out with the old, in with the new.” I hoped Uncle Harry and Justin Marguilles planned for out with the new, when it came to her. Although, I did feel sorry for Celia. She really looked distraught about her missing daughter when I'd seen her earlier on the front portico.