No Way to Kill a Lady (5 page)

“Why didn't she climb out?” Emma cut a huge chunk of French toast. “Don't all elevators have some kind of escape hatch?”

“She was tiny,” Libby said. “Probably too small to—­to—­oh, let's talk about something else, can we? It's just too upsetting.”

I was feeling the burn of tears again, too. “It's very sad, isn't it? First Aunt Madeleine, and now Pippi.”

I tried to remember some details of Pippi. Yes, she had been small and blond and not terribly proficient in English. Mostly, I recalled that she had been Aunt Madeleine's constant companion. More than a housekeeper, she had driven our demanding aunt everywhere in her white Bentley and carried Madeleine's handbag as they shopped Main Line boutiques or the prestigious floors of Philadelphia department stores. Pippi wore Madeleine's hand-­me-­down clothes—­tailoring the expensive garments to fit her smaller figure. And when the hairdresser came to the house to fix Madeleine's hair, there was always an hour spent trimming and fluffing Pippi, too.

They ate breakfast and lunch together every day at a small table in the corner of the salon. In the evenings, I remembered Pippi bringing a tray of coffee cups into the television room so they could watch
Jeopardy!
together.

Madeleine relied on her industrious housekeeper, too. When something went wrong, I could still hear Aunt Madeleine's voice raised in a musical sort of cry. “Pippeeeeee!”

I cut across Libby and Emma discussing football kickers. “When did Aunt Madeleine hire Pippi?”

My sisters looked blankly at me. “What?”

“When did Pippi first appear? Where did she come from?”

“I don't remember,” Libby said.

“Don't ask me.” Emma warmed up her coffee by pouring more from the carafe.

“And why didn't she go with Madeleine to Indonesia?”

“Probably because Madeleine wanted to be alone with her lover,” Libby replied. “Why would you want another woman tagging along on your romantic adventure?”

“But Pippi took care of Madeleine,” I insisted. “She waited on her hand and foot. I can't imagine Madeleine moving anywhere without her.”

Emma shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Maybe Shirley van Vincent knows,” I said. “Could you ask her, Em?”

My little sister blinked at me. “Sure, what the hell. But what we really need to know is when Pippi died. Did she have anything to do with the stuff that disappeared from Madeleine's place?”

“Yes, when did all the art disappear?” I said, reminded of the many treasures missing from Quintain.

“It would be a terrible shame if kids broke into the house looking for a way to make some beer money,” Libby said. “The statuary belonged in a museum, not in a roadside flea market. And the Fabergé egg! What if it's sitting in some child's Easter basket in a closet right now? It's possible the thief had no idea how valuable it was.”

“Libby,” I said, “could you do a little research? Make a list of the pieces you remember best? Surely the egg will have turned up somewhere. Things of that value don't just disappear.”

“Well, I have to think of Maximus right now. And my PitterPat followers.”

“Libby, this is important.” I turned to Emma. “What did you see when you were upstairs? Before Libby screamed?”

She shrugged. “You mean before Groatley cornered me in one of the bedrooms?”

“He cornered you?”

She grinned. “He had his pants unbuttoned and everything, the old goat.”

“But—­but you're pregnant!” Libby sputtered.

“My stomach wasn't going to get in the way of what he had in mind. He almost had me bent over a dresser before I figured out what was—­er—­up. Don't look so shocked,” she said to me. “I fought him off.”

“Em, how awful.”

Another shrug. “No big deal. He's a pig, that's all. He knew his way around the bedrooms, though.”

“Men are such animals sometimes,” Libby said indignantly. “They get themselves a little power and privilege and suddenly they're God's gift to women? They imagine every female within sniffing distance of their pheromones can't wait to rip off her panties and get jiggy. Well, no woman alive wants to be chased around the bedposts anymore.”

“Really?” Emma grinned. “You don't want to be chased around the bedposts?”

“Certainly not!” Libby took out her compact and examined her reflection in the small mirror. “I want to choose for myself. I want atmosphere and consideration and respect for my adventurous nature, not some boar in rut. If Simon Groatley comes after me with his pants down, he'd better make sure I don't have a hatchet handy.”

“You carry one in your purse, maybe?” Emma said.

“I bet Aunt Madeleine did.” Libby powdered her nose. “Or the equivalent.”

“You said Groatley knew his way around upstairs,” I said to Emma. “I wonder how? Did he have a personal relationship with Madeleine?”

Emma set down the coffeepot. “Nora, you're acting like we should be investigating something. What are you up to?”

I sat up straight and stern. “Look, you two. Don't you see? Nobody's going to be on our side in this. You want your share of the inheritance, don't you? Well, we're not going to inherit a penny if it's already gone. Em, you'll deliver that baby in a stable. And Lib, you'll have to pay for Max's football training by cleaning toilets at the gym with your very own bucket of Lysol. We have to figure out what happened or we won't get one red cent of our inheritance!”

My lecture galvanized Libby. She dove into her handbag for a notepad and pen.

Elbow on the table, Emma cupped her chin in her palm and gave me an amused look. “Did you have time to discuss any of this with Sutherland?”

Alert to Emma's wry tone, Libby looked up from her notepad. “You had a discussion with Sutherland?”

“A short one,” I admitted. “He put me on notice. He intends to fight us for Quintain. No surprise there, of course.”

“The surprise was the way he looked at you,” Emma said tartly. “I was watching from an upstairs window. That's how Groatley sneaked up on me.”

“Sutherland looked at Nora?” Libby asked.

“He practically went down on one knee in front of her.”

“Nora!” Libby dropped the notepad. “You and Sutherland?”

“Don't be silly. I have no interest in Sutherland. For one thing, he's our cousin.”

“Second cousin. Or third,” Emma said. “Aunt Madeleine married a cousin.”

“And look how well that turned out.”

“Sutherland's very attractive,” Libby said slowly. “A little old for you, maybe, but that's not an insurmountable—­”

“Isn't anyone listening?” I demanded. “I have no interest in Sutherland. I'm in a committed relationship.”

Perhaps my tone was too sharp.

After a weighty pause, Emma said, “You've been there before, Sis.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

Libby leaned forward. “What Emma means is you committed yourself heart and soul to your first husband, Nora—­even after he went crazy with drugs. You were in denial for a long time, and I'm not saying you enabled his addiction—­”

“Thanks,” I said.

“—­but it took you a long time to admit he had a serious problem. Even after he was finally killed by his dealer—­well, I'm your sister, so I can tell it to you straight. You were blind to the truth.”

Emma translated. “Todd was a shit. You should have divorced him.”

“And now,” Libby continued, “That Man of Yours is in jail and may be away for a long time. I know you don't believe he's the least bit guilty of anything, my dear sister, but . . . maybe you should consider moving on with your life? Looking for some happiness for yourself? Your biological clock is ticking.”

Sometimes I wished I could be as transparent as Libby—­blurting out my desires to anyone who would listen. Or as good at controlling my feelings as Emma—­with her blunt way of turning off her emotions when they got too difficult to manage. But I was somewhere in the middle. I'd put my heart in danger. And now, in their separate, annoying and yet deeply caring ways, my sisters were trying to protect me.

I said, “Don't worry about me. When Michael has served his sentence and comes home, we'll be perfectly happy.”

“Well, good,” Libby said, but her face was doubtful.

Her cell phone rang, and she checked the caller ID before answering. Over the past couple of years, her various children had caused plenty of uproars. When she answered the call, she kept her voice businesslike. “Yes, Rawlins?”

Emma and I glanced at each other. At least it wasn't Libby's daughter Lucy calling to announce getting kicked out of class for picking on the boys, or the thirteen-­year-­old twins lobbying to tour the city morgue. So far, Libby had fought off their requests, but we suspected she was weakening.

A call from seventeen-­year-­old Rawlins in the middle of a school day, though, signaled a different kind of emergency.

Libby's voice rose with annoyance. “You mean now? Why?”

Exasperated, she handed the phone to me. “Nora, my son says he needs to speak with you immediately.”

I accepted Libby's phone. “Rawlins?”

My nephew's voice sounded breathless. “Aunt Nora, I think you'd better come home right away.”

The mental image of various catastrophes that could befall Blackbird Farm tore through my mind like a wildfire through tinder. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong,” he said. “Not exactly. I got a call at school to come over here. I figured—­look, you better come see what's happening.”

Libby was already repacking her handbag. Rarely did she want to be first on the scene of the crime if her children might be involved, so she decided she needed to recover from the morning's shock by having an immediate pedicure.

Emma volunteered to drive me home. She had left her pickup parked outside the inn, and after a detour to the bathroom for her, we piled into the front seat.

We made the trip up the winding road alongside the Delaware River in record time.

Pulling up the long driveway to Blackbird Farm, fence posts whizzing past, we saw police cars parked every which way at the back of the house under the oaks. I was glad not to see fire trucks—­fire being my worst nightmare. But this couldn't be good.

In two hundred years, the Federal-­style house had never enjoyed the full attention of well-­paid carpenters who might have saved the porches from sagging, the roof from leaking or the shutters from hanging just a bit crookedly from the many windows. The chimneys had started to lean lately, a situation I fervently hoped might correct itself, since my meager salary from the newspaper could hardly pay the taxes, let alone cover repairs on the old place. The house was just one loose nail away from disaster.

Perhaps I should have sold the house when my parents dumped it into my lap along with a property tax bill that nearly stopped my heart. But the idea of selling off family history was beyond me. I couldn't allow the house to be bulldozed to make way for a discount store—­not when George Washington's colleagues had camped on the front lawn before their fateful boat trip across the Delaware.

As Emma pulled around the trees, I saw with relief that the old house was still standing. But the police presence made my heart pound.

I bailed out of Emma's pickup and hightailed it to the back porch. I burst through the kitchen door, causing half a dozen officers to turn from their task.

The police might as well have been invisible.

Sitting at the table? Someone I hadn't expected to see for months.

“Michael?” I said, my voice strangled.

The notorious son of New Jersey's most celebrated crime boss gave me a lazy-­eyed grin. “Hey, sweetheart. What's for lunch?”

CHAPTER FOUR

A
second later, he said sharply, “Somebody catch her.”

I didn't faint, but it was a close call. I saw stars against a dark, roiling backdrop of emotion. My nephew, Rawlins, obeyed Michael's command and came to put his hand under my elbow until my head cleared.

“You okay, Aunt Nora?”

Emma pushed through the door and stopped dead. “Hell, Mick, what did you do? Bust out of jail?”

My first impression was that the men in uniform were holding him down, trapping him in a chair and inflicting torture. Somebody had a screwdriver. Another man was leaning all his weight into Michael's leg with an electric drill.

I choked back a cry of horror.

“It's a monitor,” Rawlins said in my ear. An undercurrent of excitement vibrated in his low voice. “An electronic ankle monitor. He's on house arrest now. Cool, right?”

I tottered over to a kitchen chair and slid into it.

From the other end of the table, Michael smiled at me, enduring the attentions of law enforcement with forced calm. The uniformed officers acted as if he were a wild animal capable of springing out of their control and going on a deadly rampage. They pinned him firmly, their jaws set.

One glowering young officer stood apart, holding a bag of frozen peas against his face. He must have found the bag in my freezer. On the floor at his feet lay the shattered pieces of a broken drinking glass.

Aside from the evidence of fisticuffs, I could also see that Michael had been allowed to take a shower before being subjected to this collaring ordeal. I knew he hated bringing home the smell of incarceration. He'd changed into a pair of jeans and a pullover that had been hanging in my closet upstairs since summer. His hair was wet—­barely disguising a truly terrible short cut that must have been done with dull clippers.

When I could speak, I said, “How long have you known about this?”

Michael said, “Yesterday, they told me getting early release was a possibility. State budget cuts. The facility got overpopulated. This morning, my number came up, so here I am. I phoned, but you were out.”

He was sorry to have shocked me. His steady gaze said as much.

Suddenly I felt sunlight dawn inside me. Michael was home. Out of jail. The relief and joy felt like daybreak in my chest. Michael's expression melted when he saw that, and if I'd had the strength, I'd have climbed over the table and kissed him on the mouth. He'd have met me halfway.

But he was trapped on his side of the table, and my head was still too light to make any sudden moves, so I sat very still with my knees squeezed tightly together and my hands in my lap.

Emma set a glass of water in front of me.

Another man, with a pair of reading glasses perched low on his nose, sat at the table, signing papers. “Okay, Mick,” he said, when he dotted his last signature. “You heard the rules. You know the perimeter—­only the house, the yard as far as the road out front, the barn in the back. You have my phone number. Stay in touch.”

“My parole officer,” Michael explained. “Nora, this is Jim Kuzik. Nora Blackbird.”

Kuzik removed his glasses and tucked them inside his khaki jacket. He glanced around the large, rambling kitchen and up at the rafters, where a collection of antique cooking utensils hung alongside a scabbard reportedly left behind by Lafayette during a pre-­Revolutionary visit. After studying the accumulated hardware, Kuzik gave me an offensive once-­over, too. “You have quite a home, Miss Blackbird. Did Washington sleep here?”

“Yes,” I said. “He carved his initials on a headboard. And the dollar he threw across a river? He borrowed it from a relative of mine.”

Kuzik blinked. “No kidding?”

Plenty of historical figures had passed through the hallowed Blackbird halls. A few stayed long enough to make an impression on our family history, and the anecdotes had been passed down through the generations. But at that moment, I wasn't feeling hospitable enough to give the nickel tour. I didn't like the way they were manhandling Michael—­as if to impress their will on him one last time.

“No kidding,” I said.

“You've got a leak, though.” He pointed at the shallow pond standing on the floor tiles around the kitchen sink.

Familiar with all the drafts, pests, and other expensive issues that required money and expertise I didn't possess, I said, “I'll get a sponge.”

He eyed me a moment longer, trying to determine, perhaps, if I was holding back an angry outburst, but finally deciding I was as courteous as I pretended to be. “We need your permission, as the homeowner, to finish installing the separate phone line for the monitor. You see, we make sure of Mick's whereabouts by a wireless—­”

“Where do I sign?”

He passed the papers across the table and skidded a pen to me, too. “Are there any guns in the house?”

“There's a blunderbuss hanging over the mantel in the library,” I said as picked up the pen. “Last used by Aaron Burr, we believe. He took the gunpowder with him when he left, however.”

“Interesting. But we'll have to ask you to remove it from the premises. Mick isn't supposed to have access—­”

“I'll send it out immediately.” I jotted my signature on the line at the bottom of the page and handed it back to him. “Are you gentlemen finished now? I wonder how soon you could move your vehicles off my lawn? There are heirloom varieties of flowers planted under the grass where you parked. I'll be disappointed if the bulbs are ruined.”

My cool politeness had shamed them all into an uncomfortable silence. Finally, Kuzik said, “My apologies. And sorry about the broken glass, too. Bergamunder will clean it up. We'll be out of here in a jiffy.”

The rest of the officers had finished their drilling and pulled the leg of Michael's blue jeans down over the blinking device they intended to leave behind. As they packed up their tools, they studied me with sidelong glances. Perhaps they'd assumed I'd be some kind of mob moll with a pistol in my garter.

I didn't speak as they gathered up their equipment, swept up the broken bits of glass and tromped out of the kitchen.

Another man materialized from the scullery, where he'd been muttering into a cell phone. I recognized him as one of the more recently hired minions who did Michael's bidding at any hour of the day or night. He must have been summoned by Michael. His name was Bruno Something, and unlike the usual suspects in Michael's employment, he wore a suit and tie. He had replaced Michael's last right-­hand man, Delmar, who'd gone to jail for assault. Before that, it had been Aldo, who disappeared after being named the lead suspect in a gangland shooting. The turnover of Michael's personnel was usually six months or so. I didn't expect Bruno to last long.

Bruno must have also sensed his limited employment. Either that, or he didn't like the idea of his boss's activities being slowed down by the presence of a woman in his life. Since our first introduction, he had pretended I was invisible. He terminated his call, then pulled two more cell phones from his pockets and laid them on the kitchen table before Michael, who gathered them up without a thank-­you.

“Five o'clock and ten p.m.,” said the well-­dressed thug. “Plus seven and eleven in the morning.”

Michael got up from the table, tall and in command, checking the screens of both phones before tucking them into his pockets. He gave a nod of dismissal, and Bruno went out of the house. The kitchen door closed quietly behind him. We could hear the engines of various vehicles start up outside.

Emma said, “C'mon, Rawlins. I'm starving. I gotta pee again, and then you can take me out for an ice cream cone. I'm feeling low on calcium. Unless you want to go back to school?”

“No way. But—­”

She grabbed the collar of his sweatshirt. “It's time to clear out, kid. Four's a crowd.”

I said, “Before you go, grab the blunderbuss, will you?”

“Gotcha. We'll go out the front door.”

Over his shoulder, Rawlins said, “I'm glad you're home, Mick.”

“Thanks, kid.”

“And I'm really glad you thought you could call me for the house key, too. Call anytime.”

“Sure.”

Emma dragged Rawlins out, and they disappeared.

Still seated at the table, I tried to say calmly, “What's at five o'clock?”

“Mass at Saint Dominic's.”

“Who's going to mass?”

With a warm hand, Michael pulled me to my feet. He wasn't handsome—­his battered face had a fallen angel roughness that sometimes frightened people, and he tended to keep his thoughts secret. But a smile played at the edges of his mouth and there was a teasing light flickering in his blue eyes. He said, “I'm allowed to leave the house for church services.”

“Oh, Michael, you're not going to take any chances, are you? Surely house arrest means—­”

“I can't be denied my religion.” He wrapped both arms around me. “Or dentist appointments, come to think of it. I feel a cavity coming on.”

“But—­”

“Don't worry,” he murmured. “Here with you is where I want to be.”

He hugged me close and squeezed. His body felt delicious, but it was the sure beat of his heart against my breast that lit my fire. I put my arms around him, holding a deep breath but feeling on the brink of being swept away on a giddy surge of something I was almost afraid to call happiness. He was a man of dark depths I didn't always understand, but he was all the man I wanted—­smart and witty and protective of me and so sexy I couldn't see straight sometimes. And he was home.

I whispered his name and released the breath of tension—­one I realized I'd been holding for months. I probably wept, too, but soon we were laughing as he spun me around—­as giddy as teenagers cutting school together. Looking up into his vivid blue eyes, holding him close, I felt as if my heart might burst out of me.

Spin over, he backed me gently against the refrigerator and kissed me until my knees went weak.

As kisses went, it was pretty great. Then we smiled at each other and said a few things that hadn't been said in a while.

Later, we sat side by side on the back porch steps, breathing fresh air and sharing a peanut butter sandwich. Michael stretched his long legs into the sunshine and tipped his face up to the sun. Overhead, the oak trees whispered with drying leaves. It was a lush November day—­no nip of frost in the air yet, just warm sunlight and crisp wind. Emma's speckled spaniel, Toby, rolled contentedly in the grass in front of us. Out in the pasture, Emma's latest herd of ponies bit and kicked at one another.

I hugged my knees, and couldn't keep my eyes off Michael. He looked pale and a little thin through his face, but his shoulders were laced with new muscle, as if he'd spent his time in jail burning off his frustrations with exercise.

He said, “Sorry about the broken glass.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged, playing casual. “I lost my temper. I came down from the shower and one of Kuzik's guys was acting like he owned the place. Using your telephone, hanging around, filling a drink from your faucet.”

“You hit him.”

“No big deal.”

“They could have carted you back to prison for that.”

“Kuzik saw it my way. He's not a bad guy. So tell me what happened this morning. You came in the house white as a ghost.”

I licked peanut butter from my fingers. “I was happy to see you.”

He smiled. “I'm glad. But that wasn't all of it. Something's up.”

“All right,” I agreed. “My aunt Madeleine died last week.”

“Rawlins told me that much. I'm sorry.” His brow twitched into a frown. “Were you close to her? I don't remember you saying much about a Madeleine.”

“I wasn't close, no. In fact, I hadn't seen her since I was a child. But a funny thing has happened. She left her estate to me and my sisters.”

Michael looked surprised. “That's good news, right?”

“It would be good news indeed,” I agreed, “except other family members object.”

“She had kids of her own?”

“A stepson,” I said. “Her husband's child. Her husband was a distant cousin of mine, also a Blackbird.” I saw Michael's expression and laughed. “Yes, it's very complicated. They were not exactly related to each other, but kind of.”

“I've got a few cousins like that myself.”

“Then you know what I mean. Anyway, the stepson—­my cousin—­has already fired a warning shot. And there are other cousins who may come out of the woodwork, too.”

“So maybe you won't inherit after all?”

“My guess is the pie will be cut into very small pieces.”

“Damn. The money would have solved a lot of problems around here,” he said. “Listen, I didn't want to come through your door with this news, but as long as we're talking finances, this seems like the right moment to tell you. I'm broke again.”

When I first met Michael, he was building a scattershot business empire that included a limousine service, a fly-­fishing outfitting store, a garage that supposedly fixed cars but seemed to be more a source of hard-­to-­find secondhand parts, and a used-­car dealership that he plunked on a portion of Blackbird Farm that I'd sold to him in a moment of financial desperation. That's how we'd first met—­with me trying to dig myself out of my tax troubles by selling just a couple of acres of the farm. The endeavors were all passions of his, and he was trying out things that suited his nature. None of them had been particularly successful at first, but they got him interested in business. And once Michael's interest was engaged, he became tenacious.

At the time of our meeting, Michael had also still operated in a peripheral part of his father's business. How the Abruzzo family made their money was a tightly knotted web of crime often covered in the newspapers along with pictures of his father and half brothers in handcuffs and covering their faces with magazines. To his credit, Michael had quietly begun to untangle himself from his family. As for whether he had entirely separated from Abruzzo affairs—­well, his recent guilty plea told the tale.