Hearse of a Different Color (Hitchcock Sewell Mysteries) (33 page)

“Did he tell you that?”

“I guess I haven’t made myself clear. Richard didn’t share information with me. That wasn’t how our relationship worked. There was no dialogue going on. Richard was always brusque, always curt. This was not a man who felt he had to explain himself to anyone.”

“So, you were just speculating that he was leaving his wife for Helen.”

“Yes.”

“So then … what?”

He gave a shrug. “So, I took her on as a patient. Just as Richard requested. This prescription was nothing out of the ordinary. Prenatal vitamins. She was doing fine.”

I didn’t really want to hear any more. The doctor’s melancholy was creeping along his desk in my direction. I wanted to get out of there before it took hold of me. But I had to hear it all.

“When Helen showed up murdered at your brother’s wake, what did you think?”

“What did I think? I didn’t know
what
to think. It surprised the hell out of me, I can tell you that. Good Lord. Mr. Sewell, I have no idea who killed that poor girl, and that’s the honest truth. And I have no idea how she ended up at your funeral home. I was absolutely shocked.”

“Logic says that somebody besides you knew about Helen and your brother.”

“Yes. Logic would most definitely say that. But I don’t know who it would be.”

“You don’t suppose your brother confessed his affair to his wife, do you? I mean, if he really was planning on leaving her, he would have had to come clean at some point.”

Kingman sat with my question a moment. He looked completely knotted up inside. Despite the complete tawdriness of what he had agreed to do—act as his brother’s convenient abortionist over the years—I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the man. He seemed like a nice enough fellow. Only pathetically weak and spineless.

“Ann didn’t know,” he declared.

“How can you know that?”

“I just know.”

“I don’t mean to rough you up here, Dr. Kingman, but that wouldn’t really hold as a one hundred percent lock.
How
do you know?”

“If Richard had told Ann that he was planning to leave her, she would have told me. Ann and I are close. In our own, separate ways, we’ve been victims of Richard. There’s a certain bonding in that.”

“Does she know about the arrangement you had with her husband?”

He directed his answer to the floor. “No.”

I got to my feet. “Remind me never to bond with you, Doctor.” I picked up the prescription bottle and rattled it. Kingman looked up at me. He looked as if he were about to cry.

“So, why haven’t you told all of this to the police?” I asked. “I’m sure it occurred to you that they might find some of this a little interesting.”

“Of course they would. I was thinking … it was Ann, if you really want to know. I simply didn’t want to throw open the whole sordid mess of Richard and his infidelities to the police. You know how Baltimore is. It’s a big small town.”

“You must have known it would come out eventually.”

“What can I tell you? Each day that has passed without the connection being made was another good day as far as I was concerned.”

“So then this hasn’t been such a good day.”

“No. It hasn’t. Though to be honest, I feel relieved. This hasn’t been such a pleasant experience, holding on to this information.”

“You can’t hold onto it anymore. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course.” He rose suddenly and thrust out a hand. I took it. I recalled his grip the night of his brother’s wake. It had been fishy. This one was firm. This one had something behind it.

“It’ll all be for the better, in the end,” I said. It sounded like a silly platitude, but I believed what I was saying. As I snared my cane, the baby doctor asked me what happened to me. “I met a man I didn’t like.” I touched the cane to my brow and left his office. I closed the door quietly behind me and waited. I heard nothing at first. Then I heard the doctor’s voice. Muffled, because of the closed door, but clear enough nonetheless to make out what he was saying. He was making a phone call. The person he was calling had apparently been the one who answered the phone. He said a name. That was all I needed to hear.

•••

Rockwell, Breughel, Currier & Ives were all still being well represented by the pastoral display of frolickers and skaters out on the frozen ponds in Ann Kingman’s neighborhood. A few of the snow bunnies paused in their revelries to watch as a ruby hearse inched slowly along the road bordering the park. We weren’t creeping along for effect. Sam and I were looking for house numbers.

“There it is.”

The number we were seeking was half-hidden by the ivy on a small stone gate at the entrance to an uphill driveway. I told Sam to park out on the street rather than attempt the driveway, which looked icy. He parked the hearse and offered to help me up the terraced steps to the front door. I opted for pride and recklessness over safety. I took a firm grip on my cane.

“Read your book, Sam. I’ll be fine.”

Three days later—so it felt—I reached the summit. Like half the houses in Homeland, the Kingmans’ digs were impressive, a stately Georgian brick number with a columned front step, kelly green shutters, a large bay window bulging from the bricks to the left of the front porch and an overall sense of money well thrown around. The door knocker was brass, in the shape of the head of a mallard. I took hold of the brass bill and … I guess I rapped its gullet against the door. A moment later, the door opened. A boy looking a little like the future king of England was standing there looking at me as if he was already weary with me. I tagged him for around thirteen. Since he was giving me the bold once-over, I did the same. On his feet were those rubber shoe-boots that look like encrusted mud. He was wearing brown corduroy pants, a cranberry turtleneck and an indolent expression far more rich and deep than even your standard thirteen-year-old’s indolent mug. I couldn’t decide whether to go down on one knee or take a roundhouse swat at his head with my cane. I saw him look past me and figured he was seeing the hearse parked out front. I was tempted to intone, “It is time. Prepare yourself.” But I refrained. My sensitivity training kicked in. I had concluded that this was probably a Kingman grandson. Death jokes might not cut it just yet.

“Good afternoon, young man. Is the lady of the house available?”

“Huh?”

“Is your granny home?”

Before he could answer—and it looked like he was working up a zinger—a woman I recognized as Richard Kingman’s daughter came into the hallway behind him.

“Mr. Sewell,” she said. She stepped up to the boy and touched him on the shoulder. “Thank you, Marcus. Did you introduce yourself to Mr. Sewell?”

The boy offered me his paw and muttered a Swahili curse. Or maybe he introduced himself. “And this is Mr. Sewell,” the woman said, when I failed to remember my one line.

“How do you do, Marcus,” I said.

“Mom?”

“We’re leaving in five minutes. Go find your coat.”

The kid retreated on his mud-encrusted shoes, inexplicably leaving no trail. “Won’t you come in?” his mother said, stepping backward. I stepped over the threshold. “Oh. Your leg. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Thank you. I had a little spat with an oncoming car.” I offered her my hand. “I’m sorry. I …” I was making the international face for “Now-what-was-the-name-again?”

“Joan Bennett,” she said.

“Yes. I’m sorry. The names pour in.”

“I understand. Please, come in. Is my mother expecting you?” She closed the door (the mallard clicked) and made a move for my coat.

“I don’t think she is,” I said.

“Well, she’s upstairs. Marcus and I just dropped by to look in on her. We’re on our way into Towson for some last minute Christmas shopping.”

“I take a forty-four long,” I said, handing her my coat. She blanked for a moment, then got the joke. The resemblance to her darling son rose as she winced a fake smile.

“How is your mother doing?” I asked.

“As good as can be expected.” She turned from the hall closet. I recalled then the veritable torrent of tears that this woman had unleashed at her father’s wake.

“How are
you
?” I asked.

She took a beat. “Same answer, I suppose. You must hear this so often that it’s nothing but a cliché to you. But I can’t believe my father is dead. It is still such a shock.”

“Clichés are nothing but irrefutable truths. Of course it’s still a shock. Your mother told me you were close to your father.”

“Yes. We were very close. I suppose I was Daddy’s little princess.”

“Do you think I could see your mother?”

“Do you mind my asking what it is you need to see her about?”

“Just some details,” I said.

“Details?”

“Paperwork.”

“I don’t mean to sound rude, Mr. Sewell, but haven’t we concluded our business with you and your mother? I—”

“My aunt.”

“I’m sorry. You and your aunt? My father has been buried. I happen to know that you and your aunt have been paid. My husband took care of all that. What else is there?”

“Little things,” I said vaguely, hoping she wouldn’t ask me what.

“Like what?”

“I’d really rather just go over it with your mother, if you don’t mind.”

I was trying to sound pleasant. And I suppose she was trying not to bristle. Neither of us was doing such a bang-up job.

“He was my father, Mr. Sewell,” she reminded me. “A daughter is no less than a widow.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that. I apologize.”

She suddenly softened. “I apologize as well. I’m sorry. I just … well nevermind. I just so wish that my father would suddenly come down those stairs and ask us what we’re having. This house is dead without him.” She reddened. “Bad choice of words.”

“It happens. Look, Mrs. Bennett, I’m terribly sorry about all this. I should have phoned ahead, but I’ve just gotten out of the hospital. I’m a little off my game.”

“I understand. Please. You can wait in the living room. I’ll tell Mother you’re here.”

She showed me into the living room, then went upstairs to fetch her mother. The room was fussy with good furniture and hunting prints and a great stone fireplace, currently empty and black. The mantelpiece was lined with holiday cards. I spotted the ski-vacation photograph—framed—on the wall near the liquor cabinet. Joan Bennett’s debutante photograph took center stage on a small round table that probably dated from the Revolutionary War. She looked like one half of a wedding cake couple, in a long white dress and a clutch of flowers in her gloved hands. On one of the end tables next to the couch, Jeffrey Kingman was represented by what I guessed was his high school yearbook picture. I’m sure if he could go back and jettison the tortoiseshell glasses and give up the early-Beatles haircut, he would. Memories are one thing. Pictures of them are another.

Ann Kingman came into the room. I hadn’t even heard her approach. Her daughter gave me a wave from the hallway on her way out. Marcus had reappeared wearing a down parka. He didn’t wave. Ann Kingman remained just inside the living room entrance, stock-still. She was clearly holding off our conversation until her daughter and grandson had vamoosed. They left. Ann Kingman came into the room and alighted on the couch. She looked older than when I had last seen her, all of a week and a half before. Her eyes looked harder. The lines around her mouth were a harsh set of parentheses. I sat down in the closest chair, which turned out to be an uncomfortable wooden rocker. Neither of us had yet spoken a word when the front door suddenly flew open and Joan Bennett roared into the house. She was completely red in the face.

“There’s a goddamned hearse parked out front!”

I raised my hand. “That would be me.”

“
What
is it doing there?”

“Idling?”

“This is
not
funny, Mr. Sewell. My father has not been dead two weeks, and you come out here in a
hearse
? Is this your idea of a joke?”

“My car was just totaled.”

“I don’t care! That is no excuse for—”

“Joan!” Ann Kingman spoke without bothering to turn around to look at her daughter. “Joan, I’m certain that Mr. Sewell did not intend any disrespect.”

“But—”

“But nothing. We have business to attend to. If you would please—”

Her daughter made a huffy exit. The mallard banged loudly. A moment later we heard the twin
thmps
of Joan Bennett’s car doors followed by the sound of the motor firing up. It wasn’t until those muffled noises had receded and mother and son were on their way to Towson for some last minute Yuletide spending that Ann Kingman and I shifted in our separate seats and moved from a grim staredown to the matter at hand.

“You knew I was coming,” I said. “Right?”

“I received a phone call. Daniel swore that he had convinced you I knew nothing about Richard’s little fling.”

“Daniel is a lot less convincing than he thinks. He was reaching for the phone even before I was out of his office.”

“Let me guess. You listened through the door?”

“I didn’t really have to. Except for the crucial detail of what precisely your husband had done to piss you off, your behavior … well, your temperament at your husband’s wake and then again when I ran into you last week wasn’t really doing much to hide the fact that
something
about your husband had you in a snit.”

“You didn’t think that I was merely angry with him for dying and leaving me alone?”

“No. Your daughter, maybe, I’d buy that from—”

“My daughter.” I thought she was going to say more. But apparently she was satisfied with that.

“So, you knew about your husband and Helen Waggoner.”

“Would you care for a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Well, I’m going to have one. I hope that’s okay with you.”

“Allow me.” I started to get out of the rocker, but I missed on the first pass.

“No, no, don’t bother. Please.” She rose from the couch and went over to the liquor cabinet. “Lord knows I’ve had to pour enough of my own drinks over the years.” She made herself a Scotch and soda and brought it back to the couch. “You’re making me drink alone.”