Moonlight Becomes You (22 page)

“Oh, everybody knows her. She's a pillar of the Providence old guard. I did call her, and she simply raved about Douglas Hansen.”

“I see. Even so, I'd like to run a check on him,” Neil said. “He sounds to me like just the kind of guy our business doesn't need.”

The phone rang.

Maggie, Neil thought. Let it be Maggie.

Instead, it was his associate at the investment house. Neil listened, then turned to Cora Gebhart. “He got you out at seven. Count yourself lucky. There's a rumor just starting to circulate that Johnson & Johnson is going to issue a statement saying it has absolutely no interest in taking over that company. Whether the rumor is true or not, it's enough to send the company's stock into a tailspin.”

When Cora Gebhart left, Robert Stephens looked at his son affectionately. “Thank God you were here, Neil. Cora has a good head and a big heart, but she's too trusting. It would have been a damn shame to have her wiped out by one mistake. As it is, this may mean that she'll have to give up the idea of moving into Latham Manor. She had her eye on a particular apartment there, but maybe she'll still be able to take a smaller one.”

“Latham Manor,” Neil said. “I'm glad you mentioned it. I need to ask you about that place.”

“What on earth do you want to know about Latham Manor?” his mother asked.

Neil told them about the Van Hillearys, his clients who were looking for a retirement base. “I told them I'd investigate that place for them. I'd almost forgotten. I should have made an appointment to see it.”

“We're not teeing up until one,” Robert Stephens said, “and Latham isn't that far from the club. Why don't you
call over and see if you can make an appointment now, or at least pick up some literature about it for your clients.”

“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today,” Neil said with a grin. “Unless, of course, I can get hold of Maggie first. She must be home by now.”

After six unanswered rings, he replaced the receiver. “She's still out,” he said glumly. “Okay, where's the phone book? I'll call Latham Manor; let's get it out of the way.”

Dr. William Lane could not have been more pleasant. “You're calling at a very good time,” he said. “We have one of our best suites available—a two-bedroom unit with a terrace. It's one of four such apartments, and the other three are occupied by charming couples. Come right over.”

44

D
R
. L
ARA
H
ORGAN
,
THE NEW MEDICAL EXAMINER FOR THE
state of Rhode Island, had not been able to figure out what was making her uneasy. But then, it had been a busy week for her department: extraordinary deaths had included two suicides, three drownings, and a felony murder.

The death of the woman at the Latham Manor residence, on the other hand, was to all appearances purely routine. Still, something about it was bothering her. The medical history of the deceased woman, Greta Shipley, had been perfectly straightforward. Her longtime doctor had retired, but his associate verified that Mrs. Shipley had a ten-year history of hypertension and had suffered at least one silent heart attack.

Dr. William Lane, the director and attending physician at Latham Manor, seemed competent. The staff had experience, and the facilities were first-rate.

The fact that Mrs. Shipley had had a weak spell at the funeral Mass of her friend, the murder victim, Nuala Moore, and a second spell only verified the tension she must have been under.

Dr. Horgan had seen a number of instances where an elderly spouse expired hours or even minutes after the death of the husband or wife. Someone horrified by the circumstances of a dear friend's death might easily experience that same fatal stress.

As state medical examiner, Dr. Horgan was familiar as well with the circumstances surrounding the death of Nuala Moore, and she was aware how upsetting they might be to someone as close to the victim as Mrs. Shipley had been. Multiple vicious blows to the back of Mrs. Moore's head had proven fatal. Grains of sand mixed in with blood and hair suggested that the perpetrator had found the weapon, probably a rock, somewhere on the beach and had entered the house carrying it. It also suggested that the perpetrator had known the resident of the house was small and frail, perhaps even actually knew Mrs. Moore. That's what it is, she told herself. The niggling feeling that Nuala Moore's death is somehow tied in with the one at Latham Manor is what's sending alarm signals to me. She decided to call the Newport police and ask if they had turned up any leads as yet.

The newspapers from earlier in the week were stacked on her desk. She found a brief item on the obituary page detailing Mrs. Shipley's background, her community activities, her membership in the DAR, her late husband's position as board chairman of a successful company. It listed her survivors
as three cousins, residing in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Denver.

No one nearby watching out for her, Dr. Horgan thought, as she put the paper down and turned to the mountain of work on her desk.

Then a final thought teased her: Nurse Markey. She was the one who had found Mrs. Shipley's body at Latham Manor. There was something about that woman she didn't like, a kind of sly, know-it-all quality. Maybe Chief Brower should talk to her again.

45

A
S PART OF HIS RESEARCH FOR HIS LECTURE SERIES
, E
ARL
Bateman had begun to take rubbings from old tombstones. He had made them the subject of one of his talks.

“Today, minimal information is recorded on gravestones,” he would explain, “only birth and death dates, really. But in other centuries, wonderful histories could be read from headstones. Some are poignant, while some are rather remarkable, as in the case of the sea captain buried with his five wives—none of whom, I might add, lived more than seven years once married.”

At that point, he was usually rewarded by a ripple of laughter.

“Other markers,” he would explain, “are awesome in the majesty and history they convey.”

He would then cite the chapel in Westminster Abbey, where Queen Elizabeth I was entombed only a few feet
from the cousin she had ordered beheaded, Mary, Queen of Scots.

“One interesting note,” he would add, “in Ketchakan, Alaska, in the nineteenth century, Tombstone Cemetery, the burial ground there, reserved a special section for the ‘Soiled Doves,' as they called the young women who resided in bordellos.”

On this Friday morning, Earl was preparing a synopsis of the lectures he proposed to deliver in the potential cable television series. When he came to the subject of tombstone rubbings, he was reminded that he had intended to look for other interesting ones; then, realizing it was a beautiful day, perfect for such an activity, he decided to visit the oldest sections of St. Mary's and Trinity cemeteries.

He was driving down the road that led to the cemeteries when he saw a black Volvo station wagon come out through the open gates and turn the other way. Maggie Holloway had the same make and color car, he thought. Could she possibly have been here visiting Nuala's grave?

Instead of going to the old section, he drove to the left and circled up the hill. Pete Brown, a cemetery worker he had come to know from his various meanderings among the old tombstones, was weeding a gravel path in the vicinity of Nuala's grave.

Earl stopped the car and opened the window. “Pretty quiet around here, Pete,” he offered. It was an old joke they shared.

“Sure is, Professor.”

“I thought I saw Mrs. Moore's stepdaughter's car. Was she visiting the grave?” He was sure that everyone knew the details of Nuala's death. There weren't
that
many murders in Newport.

“Nice looking lady, skinny, dark hair, young?”

“That would be Maggie.”

“Yep. And she must know half of our guests,” Pete said, then laughed. “One of the fellows was saying that he saw her go from one plot to another and drop off flowers. All the guys noticed her. She's a doll.”

Now isn't that interesting? Earl thought. “Take care, Pete,” he said, then waved as he drove off slowly. Knowing that the all-seeing eyes of Pete Brown were on him, he continued on to the oldest section of Trinity and began wandering among the seventeenth-century headstones there.

46

L
ETITIA
B
AINBRIDGE
'
S STUDIO APARTMENT AT
L
ATHAM
Manor was a large corner room with a magnificent ocean view. Proudly she pointed out the oversized dressing room and bath. “Being a charter member here has its perks,” she said briskly. “I remember how Greta and I decided to sign up right away, at that presentation reception. Trudy Nichols hemmed and hawed, and then never forgave me for picking off this unit. She ended up paying another hundred and fifty thousand for one of the largest apartments, and the poor darling only lived two years. The Crenshaws have it now. They were at our table the other night.”

“I remember them. They're very nice.”
Nichols,
Maggie thought.
Gertrude Nichols.
Hers was one of the graves that has the bell.

Mrs. Bainbridge sighed, “It's always hard when one of us goes, but especially hard when it's someone from our table. And I just
know
that Eleanor Chandler will get Greta's
place. When my daughter Sarah took me to my family doctor yesterday, she told me the word is out that Eleanor is moving in here.”

“Aren't you feeling well?” Maggie asked.

“Oh, I'm fine. But at my age anything can happen. I told Sarah that Dr. Lane could check my blood pressure just fine, but Sarah wanted me to be seen by Dr. Evans.”

They sat down opposite each other on slipper chairs that were placed by the windows. Mrs. Bainbridge reached over and plucked a framed snapshot from among the many on a nearby table. She showed it to Maggie. “My crowd,” she said proudly. “Three sons, three daughters, seventeen grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and three on the way.” She smiled with great satisfaction. “And the nice part is that so many of them are still in New England. Never a week goes by that somebody in the family isn't around.”

Maggie consciously stored that piece of information; something to consider later, she thought. Then she noticed a picture that had been taken in the grand salon here at Latham Manor. Mrs. Bainbridge was in the center of a group of eight. She picked it up. “Special occasion?” she asked.

“My ninetieth birthday, four years ago.” Letitia Bainbridge leaned forward and indicated the women at either end of the group. “That's Constance Rhinelander on the left. She just died a couple of weeks ago, and of course you knew Greta. She's on the right.”

“Mrs. Shipley didn't have close family, did she?” Maggie asked.

“No. Neither did Constance, but we were family for each other.”

It was time to ask about the bells, Maggie decided. She looked around for inspiration as to how to bring up the subject. The room had obviously been furnished with Mrs. Bainbridge's personal belongings. The ornately carved four-poster
bed, the antique English pie-crust table, the Bombay chest, the delicately toned Persian carpet, all spoke of generational history.