Moonlight Becomes You (9 page)

Lane sighed. She was a lightweight—“a ninny,” his grandmother would have snapped—but she
was
pretty. He had felt himself most fortunate eighteen years ago, to have convinced an attractive—younger—woman to marry him. Plus, she
did
care about him, and he knew her frequent, sugary-warm visits to the residents delighted most of them. She might seem cloying at times, but she was nonetheless sincere, and that counted for a lot. A few residents, like Greta Shipley, found her vacuous and irritating, which to Lane only proved Mrs. Shipley's intelligence, but there was no question that here at Latham Manor, Odile was an asset to him.

Lane knew what was expected of him. With virtually no show of the resignation he felt, he stood up, put his arms
around his wife and murmured, “What would I do without you?”

It was a relief when his secretary buzzed him on the intercom. “Miss Holloway is here,” she announced.

“You'd better go, Odile,” Lane whispered, forestalling her inevitable suggestion that she stay and be part of the meeting.

For once she didn't argue but slipped out the unmarked door of his suite that led to the main corridor.

17

T
HE NIGHT BEFORE
,
BLAMING THE THREE-HOUR NAP SHE
had taken earlier, Maggie had been still wide awake at midnight. Giving up on going to sleep anytime soon, she had gone downstairs again and, in the small study, found books, several of them fully illustrated, on the “cottages” of Newport.

Carrying them up to bed, she had propped pillows behind her back and read for nearly two hours. As a result, when she was admitted to Latham Manor by a uniformed maid who then called Dr. Lane to announce her arrival, she was able to take in her surroundings with some degree of knowledge.

The mansion had been built by Ernest Latham in 1900, as a deliberate rebuke to what he considered the vulgar ostentation of the Vanderbilt mansion, The Breakers. The layout for the two houses was almost the same, but the Latham house had livable proportions. The entrance hall
was still overwhelmingly large, but was, in fact, only a third of the size of The Breakers' “Great Hall of Entry.” Satinwood—rather than Caen limestone—covered the walls, and the staircase of richly carved mahogany, carpeted in cardinal red, stood in place of the marble staircase The Breakers boasted.

The doors on the left were closed, but Maggie knew the dining room would be there.

To the right, what originally must have been the music room looked most inviting, with comfortable chairs and matching hassocks, all richly upholstered in moss green and floral patterns. The magnificent Louis Quinze mantel was even more breathtaking in reality than it had appeared in the pictures she had seen. The ornately carved space above the fireplace stretched to the ceiling, filled with Grecian figures, tiny angels, and pineapples and grapes, except for the smooth center, where a Rembrandt-school oil painting had been hung.

It really
is
beautiful, she thought, mentally comparing it with the unspeakably squalid condition of a nursing home interior she had surreptitiously photographed for
Newsmaker
magazine.

She realized suddenly that the maid had spoken to her. “Oh, I'm sorry,” she apologized, “I was just trying to take it all in.”

The maid was an attractive young woman with dark eyes and olive skin. “It is lovely, isn't it?” she said. “Even working here is a pleasure. I'll take you to Dr. Lane now.”

His office was the largest in a suite of offices along the back of the house. A mahogany door separated the area from the rest of the first floor. As Maggie followed the maid down the carpeted corridor, she glanced through an open office door and noticed a familiar face—Janice Norton, the wife of Nuala's lawyer, sat behind a desk.

I didn't know she worked here, Maggie thought. But then I really don't know much at all about any of these people, do I?

Their eyes met, and Maggie could not help feeling uncomfortable. She had not missed the bitter disappointment on Malcolm Norton's face when Mrs. Woods revealed that Nuala had canceled the sale of her house. But he had been cordial at the wake and funeral yesterday and had suggested that he would like to have a chat with her about her plans for the house.

She paused just long enough to greet Mrs. Norton, then followed the maid down the corridor to the corner office.

The maid knocked, waited, and at the invitation to enter, opened the door for Maggie and stepped back, closing it once Maggie was inside.

Dr. Lane stood up and came around his desk to greet her. His smile was cordial, but it seemed to Maggie that his eyes were appraising her professionally. His greeting confirmed that impression.

“Ms. Holloway, or Maggie, if I may, I'm glad to see that you look a bit more rested. Yesterday was a very difficult day for you, I know.”

“I'm sure it was difficult for everyone who loved Nuala,” Maggie said quietly. “But I'm really concerned about Mrs. Shipley. How is she this morning?”

“She had another weak spell last evening, but I looked in on her just a while ago, and she seems quite fit. She's looking forward to your visit.”

“When I spoke to her this morning, she particularly asked if I would drive her out to the cemetery. Do you think that's a good idea?”

Lane indicated the leather chair in front of his desk. “Sit down, please.” He returned to his own chair. “I wish she'd wait a few days, but when Mrs. Shipley makes up her mind
to do something . . . well, nothing changes it. I do think that both of her little spells yesterday were caused by her deep emotion over Nuala's death. The two of them were really very close. They'd gotten into the habit of going up to Mrs. Shipley's studio after Nuala's art class, and they would gossip and have a glass or two of wine. I told them they were like a pair of schoolgirls. Frankly, though, it probably was good for both of them, and I know Mrs. Shipley will miss those visits.”

He smiled, reminiscing. “Nuala once told me that if she were hit over the head and then asked her age when she came to, she'd say twenty-two and mean it. Inside, she said, she really was twenty-two.”

Then as he realized what he had said, he looked shocked. “I'm so sorry. How careless of me.”

Hit over the head,
Maggie thought. But feeling sorry for the man's acute embarrassment, she said, “Please don't apologize. You're right. In spirit Nuala never
was
older than twenty-two.” She hesitated, then decided to plunge in. “Doctor, there's one thing I must ask you. Did Nuala ever confide to you that something was troubling her? I mean, did she have a physical problem she may have mentioned?”

He shook his head. “No, not physical. I think Nuala was having a great deal of difficulty with what she perceived to be giving up her independence. I really think that if she had lived she eventually would have made up her mind to come here. She was always concerned about the relatively high cost of the large apartment with the extra bedroom, but as she said, she had to have a studio where she could both work and close the door when she was finished.” He paused. “Nuala told me that she knew she was a bit untidy by nature but that her studio was always the scene of organized chaos.”

“Then you believe that canceling the sale of her house
and the hasty will she left were simply a last-minute panic attack of sorts?”

“Yes, I do.” He stood up. “I'll ask Angela to bring you up to Mrs. Shipley. And if you do go to the cemetery, observe her carefully, please. If she seems in any way distraught, return immediately. After all, the families of our guests have entrusted their lives to our care, and we take that responsibility very seriously.”

18

M
ALCOLM
N
ORTON SAT IN HIS OFFICE ON
T
HAMES
S
TREET
, staring at his appointment calendar for the remainder of the day. It was now
entirely
empty, thanks to the cancellation of his two o'clock appointment. It wouldn't have been much of a case—just a young housewife suing her neighbor over a nasty dog bite. But the dog had a previous complaint against it—another neighbor had fought off an attack with a broom—so it was a foregone conclusion that the insurance company would be anxious to settle, particularly since the gate had been carelessly left open, and the dog allowed to run loose.

The trouble was, it was
too
easy a case. The woman had phoned to say the insurance company had settled to her satisfaction. Meaning I'm out three or four thousand dollars, Norton thought glumly.

He still could not get over the sickening realization that less than twenty-four hours before she died, Nuala Moore had secretly canceled the sale of her house to him. Now he
was stuck with the two-hundred-thousand-dollar mortgage he had raised on his own house.

It had been hell getting Janice to agree to co-sign for the mortgage. Finally he had told her about the impending change in the Wetlands Act, and about the profits he hoped to reap in reselling Nuala Moore's property.

“Look,” he had said, trying to reason with her, “you're tired of working in the nursing home. God knows I hear that every day. It's an absolutely legitimate sale. The house needs everything done to it. The worst possible scenario is that the new wetlands legislation doesn't go through, which won't happen. In that case, we take a renovating mortgage on Nuala's place, fix it up, and sell it for three-fifty.”

“A second mortgage,” she had said sarcastically. “My, my, you're quite the entrepreneur. So I quit my job. And what will you do with your new-found wealth, after the change in the Wetlands Act goes through?”

It was, of course, a question he was not prepared to answer. Not until after the sales had been completed. And that, of course, was not going to happen now. Not unless things changed. He could still hear Janice's furious words after they got home Friday night. “So now we have a two-hundred-thousand-dollar mortgage and the expense we went through to get it. You march yourself right down to the bank and pay it off. I don't intend to lose my home.”

“You're not going to lose it,” he had said, pleading for time to work everything out. “I already told Maggie Holloway that I wanted to see her. She knows it's about the house. Do you think she'll want to stay in a place where her stepmother was murdered? Ms. Holloway will get out of Newport as fast as possible, and I'm going to point out that over the years I've been a big help to Nuala and Tim Moore without charging them my usual fee. By next week she'll have agreed to sell the house.”

She
had
to agree to sell the house, he told himself morosely. It was his only way out of this mess.

The intercom buzzed. He picked it up. “Yes, Barbara,” he said, his voice formal. He was careful never to let an intimate quality intrude into their exchanges when she was in the outer office. He could never be certain that someone else had not come in.

From her tone of voice today, it was obvious to him that she was alone. “Malcolm, may I talk to you for a few minutes?” was all she said, but immediately he sensed that something was wrong.

A moment later she was sitting opposite him, her hands folded in her lap, her lovely hazel eyes averted. “Malcolm, I don't know how to say this, so I'd better just plunge in. I can't stay here. I feel rotten about myself these days.” She hesitated, then added, “Even loving you as much as I do, I can't get away from the fact that you're married to someone else.”

“You've seen me with Janice. You know our relationship.”

“But she's still your wife. It's better this way, believe me. I'm going to visit my daughter in Vail for a couple of months. Then, when I come back, I'll find a different job.”

“Barbara, you can't just walk out like this,” he pleaded, suddenly panicked.

She smiled sadly. “Not this minute. I wouldn't do that. I'm giving you a week's notice.”