Sticks & Scones (6 page)

Our boots made a
shh-shh
noise as we shuffled over the sumptuous carpets. I touched the cellular in my pocket. The moment we were situated, I promised myself, I would call Tom’s hotel.

“You’re a member of the fencing team, right, Arch?” Sukie trilled over her shoulder. “When your teammates come to our banquet this week, you’ll be able to show them around. We have an indoor pool, now, on the ground floor west of the postern gate, if you want to go for a swim.”

Arch mumbled, “Okay.” He hated to swim. He said, “Miss Kirovsky has been telling us about her collection of royal memorabilia. I’d really like to see
that.
”

I exhaled. At least he hadn’t requested an interview with the phantom of the young duke-apparent.

“Then ask her, my dear,” Sukie replied graciously as she paused by one of the glass doors. “And perhaps Michaela could take you to school today, after she unloads your mother’s equipment.”

I felt a tad confused, as I hadn’t realized that Michaela was regarded as a general servant in addition to caretaker
and
local fencing coach. But it was too early in the day to delve into the particulars of the Hydes’ household arrangements.

While Sukie held open the door, Arch turned to me and asked softly, “How will Dad even know I’m here?”

“I’ll call the county lawyer, all right?” I was not about to call John Richard’s attorney, that pompous nerd responsible for mailing child support payments from John Richard’s fat hoard of cash, the result of the sale of his ob-gyn practice. Dealing with the Jerk’s attorney was like being forced to eat … well, that historic but unappetizing food:
pottage.
It was not something I chose to do.

A hint of desperation threaded through Arch’s voice. “Look, Mom, I know you don’t want to see Dad. But I promised him we could get together as soon as he got out. It’s what he said he wanted more than anything. So could you please find him? Please?”

“I told you I would, hon. Just not this sec, okay?”

Sukie waited politely until my son and I had finished our whispered conference. In tense silence, we went through yet another set of glass doors, which Sukie said they had installed as insulation against the cold. The need for insulation quickly became evident when we entered the tower. An arctic blast made us all pull our coats tightly around us.

Unlike the hallway, the corner drum tower was not newly lined with marble. Frigid air poured through slits in the gray stone—more narrow openings used by archers.

Sukie pointed to a smaller, covered stone cylinder on
the tower floor. “This was the castle’s original well, Arch. Do you know why they placed the well inside the castle, instead of outside?”

I knew she was trying to be nice, to make Arch feel welcome. I was not sure it was working. Arch frowned, as if deciding whether to indulge Sukie with an answer.

“Actually,” he said finally, his voice raised over another sudden cold wind. “I do know about castle wells. People living in the castle had to have their water supply inside the fortress walls, in the event of siege. They didn’t want the enemy poisoning their drinking supply. Do you use it for the castle’s water?”

“Oh, no,” Sukie answered, apparently delighted with his interest. “Eliot’s grandfather had a new water system put in, and Eliot’s father used insurance money to get the whole plumbing system upgraded, after Fox Creek flooded in ’82.”

She gestured for us to go through the door she’d opened to the next large space, the dining room. Here, the walls had been painted a creamy yellow, which was the perfect complement for the lime, pink, and cream Persian rug, walnut dining-room table and chairs, and large matching buffet and glass-fronted wine cabinet, one of the two places Eliot kept his jam supply. No doubt, this furniture was also gen-yoo-ine antique, the kind Tom, but not I, could have dated and placed.

“And this is the buttery, Arch,” Sukie explained. “Or at least it used to be. Bottles of ale were kept here. The wine cellar was underneath. Next door to the buttery was the stillroom, where they made preserves, and next to that was a bedroom. We combined all three rooms for the dining room and kitchen. Eliot makes his jams in the kitchen, since the stillroom is kaput. Wait until you taste his goodies. Your mother loved them.”

“I did indeed,” I murmured, as we entered the kitchen. I had been in this grand cooking-and-serving
space on my earlier visit. Four electrified chandeliers provided the lighting. Glass-fronted maple cupboards with painted porcelain handles rose above a shiny backsplash of blue-and-white Delft tiles. A maple corner cupboard was also crammed with jars of preserves. Overhead, an immense, hook-studded iron rack hung from the ceiling. From each hook dangled a darkened pot or roasting pan, some of them massive enough to roast a flock of geese. One wall boasted framed photos and reproduction signs from English taverns. Along the other wall, cozy embers glowed in one of the two stone hearths. In spite of the flickering electrified candles, shadows filled the kitchen’s corners like smoke.

Arch’s insistent voice cracked next to my ear. “I have to get ready for school.
Now
, Mom.”

“I’m sure we’ll be going to a place where you can change in a minute,” I said quickly, feeling my irritation flare. But he was right. Sukie’s leisurely early-morning guided tour of her castle was getting on my nerves, too.

Arch glared at me. “When?”

I squared my shoulders, shot him a reproving look, and asked Sukie, who was donning heavy pot-holder mitts, “Is Michaela—Miss Kirovsky, that is—coming over here? I mean, to the kitchen?”

“Any minute, just … agh!” Sukie had pulled open her oven door, and a cloud of black smoke billowed out. Somewhere nearby a smoke alarm started shrieking. “Oh,
dam-mit!
” she hollered. Dropping the pot holders, she pulled out the charred coffee cake with her bare hands. She immediately let go of the pan and screamed bloody murder.

“Eeoyow! Hilft! Mutti!”

“Cold water!” I cried. “Now! Now!”

She didn’t move. I tugged her to the sink, where I ran cold water over her hands while murmuring comforting words. Tears streamed down Sukie’s perfectly made-up
cheeks. When I was sure she was going to stay put, I grabbed two folded kitchen towels and picked up the offending coffee cake pan from the floor. One of the first things I’d learned working in a professional kitchen was not to dump smoking food into the trash. I tossed the coffee cake under a second faucet, then dashed to the ovens and turned on every ventilation fan I could find. Within minutes, the smoke had abated and the alarm had mercifully quieted.

Sukie stopped crying, inspected her fingers, and wrapped a wet towel around her left hand. Arch continued to give me his I-
really
-need-to-talk-to-you look. I didn’t know what to say.
Excuse me, Sukie, but may my son and I leave you, your burned hands, and your smoke-stinking kitchen so we can confer in your nondairy buttery?

Arch tugged my sleeve. “Ah, I need to drop my stuff somewhere before I go to school. I need to do my hair, too, and finish getting ready. Okay? Please? And I do want Miss Kirovsky to take me to school, so you, Mom, can track down that lawyer and find out where Dad is.”

“Okay,”
I promised in a low voice. I pressed the power button on my cell phone. The tiny screen told me the phone was
Looking for service
, which is the telecommunications euphemism for
You’re out of luck!
“Sukie, I’m desperate for a telephone. Is there one nearby?”

She said patiently, “It is just half past six.”

“It’s okay,” I replied.
It’s half past eight in New Jersey, and that’s the only time that counts right now.
I said, “I really need to talk to my husband before he leaves for the airport.” After that, I would fulfill my promise to Arch and leave a message for Pat Gerber, the assistant district attorney for Furman County. Clearly, the Department of Corrections was taking its sweet time getting around to informing us of its plans for the Jerk. Pat Gerber would give me the straight scoop—if I could find her.

“There is a phone on that wall—” Sukie began, but
we were interrupted at that moment by the entrance of Eliot Hyde.

He banged open the heavy wooden door, glided into the kitchen, and surveyed his wife, his caterer, and his caterer’s son. Then he sniffed the air suspiciously. The flickering chandelier turned errant strands of his hair to gold. This morning, Eliot’s movie-star features and sad brown eyes seemed even more striking than before. He wore the ubiquitous silk scarf above a long, flowing bathrobe of royal blue velvet.
Tender Is the Nightgown.
Arch stared at Eliot Hyde with his mouth open.

“Cheerio!” Eliot called to us, as if we numbered in the hundreds, instead of just three. “Welcome to our castle!”

“Mom!” Arch was tugging on my sleeve again. “When can we—”

“Honey,” I pleaded. “Stop! You’re driving me nuts!”

Ignoring this, Eliot Hyde sniffed the air again and looked around. “Aw, honeykins, did you burn another one?”

To my dismay, before Sukie could reply, my son turned and bolted from the kitchen. After a stunned second, I scooted after him, paddling hard through an ocean of guilt.

Eliot called plaintively after us, “What did I
say
?”

I
caught up with Arch by the well. “Look, hon—”

“I want to leave. I want to see Dad. I want to know why our window was shot at. What if someone tried to shoot at
Dad
, too? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t gotten in touch with me. Did you ever think of that, Mom? Maybe somebody’s trying to get us all.”

Most of the time, Arch kept his feelings well in control. Now he was worried about his father, worried about the house, worried about me. Added up, this was too big a burden for a teenager.

“Arch, please,” I told him, “the cops are working on the bullet through the window. Once, when I was little? Somebody threw a snowball packed with gravel through our picture window. Who ever heard of such a thing happening in a nice neighborhood of a small New Jersey town? The kid who threw it said it was a prank. So that’s what I think. Whoever shot out our window was either drunk or playing a joke. Trust me, your father can take care of himself. Please, let’s go back.”

He mumbled, “If that’s true, then it’s a
stupid
joke,” but grudgingly returned to the kitchen. Sukie had her hands in a bowl of ice water. Eliot had moved to the counter to make tea, and Arch squinted at the back of the royal blue robe, which we could now see was embroidered with the words
“His Highness.”
His water-heating mission complete, Eliot flowed back to the island and cocked an aristocratic eyebrow at Arch and me. The robe swirled around his ankles.

“I understand you two had a spot of trouble.”

“We did,” I replied. I did
not
want to discuss the window anymore. “Thank you so much for taking us in. Now if we could just—”

Eliot treated me to a dazzling grin. “You
are
ready to do the lunch today, aren’t you? We should probably chat.”

My mind swam. The lunch would start in five hours. I was earlier than I’d be for a wedding reception, which required much more labor-intensive preparation. But he was my employer. And my host, I reminded myself. “I am ready,” I replied dutifully. “I brought the ingredients with me. You won’t mind if I use your kitchen?”

“Certainly not,” Eliot replied. “But … I never heard from the table people. Was the rental company supposed to call me when the tables arrived?”

My heart sank. The food might be ready, but if the notoriously unreliable folks at Party Rental had screwed up … “You don’t know if they showed up? At the chapel, I mean?”

Eliot frowned. “I don’t know. Oh, God! A glitch in our first event!”

“It’s not a glitch—” I said weakly.

“
I
will call the table people,” Sukie offered, “as soon as we get Goldy and her son up to their suites and I can bandage my hands.”

Eliot crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling, always the first sign that a client was going neurotic on me. He
pleaded, “I
beg
you, Goldy,
tell
me you remembered to bring all your recipes and notes with you.”

Crap and double crap.
My recipes and notes. I’d brought my laptop, but not, I suddenly realized, the disk with all my Hyde Castle recipes and the research I’d done over the past two weeks on the history of English cuisine. “No. I’m sorry. I’ll go home for them the minute we get settled.” I added apologetically, “I mean, if that’s all right, and the cops allow me in. And,” I promised with a nod to Sukie, “I’ll check on the tables at the same time.”

Eliot circumnavigated the kitchen island, tapping his left hand pensively on the wood. I could almost see the wheels in his head turning. At the Hyde Chapel luncheon, Eliot intended to pitch the audience on his plans to transform the castle into a conference center. If that didn’t go well, then the guests might think that he was just an academic who couldn’t make the move to real business … that he was a failure in this, too….

“Let’s move you two up to your suites,” Sukie interjected, as she wiped her hands. “I have a
very
special room for you, Arch. Right next to your mom.”

“We’re not sure how long we’ll be here,” I murmured.

“We are practicing on you!” Sukie said cheerfully. “Our first guests in the refurbished rooms!”

Relieved to be out of Eliot’s tranquilizer-needing presence, we followed Sukie down another marble hallway to carpeted steps leading to the castle’s second floor.

The second story featured floors of darkly polished cherry wood. Matching English-club cherry paneling on the walls gave the place an elegantly homey look. Floor-to-ceiling leaded-glass windows lined the side of the hallway overlooking the courtyard. I peeked out at the garden. In the early-morning light, the iced pattern of plants had taken on a pearly cast.

We skirted a sawhorse and a splotch of dried beige
paint on the floor. Sukie murmured something about
Eliot and one of his new messes.
Next we passed a closed door and rounded a corner, where Sukie opened another door. This, she announced as she switched on more electrified brass wall sconces, would be Arch’s room. Awed, Arch walked into the palatial space, where a black-and-gray Aubusson rug set the decor for a mahogany four-poster bed and silver-tasseled spread, black wingback chairs, a long gray couch, and an ornately carved desk beside a fireplace. Pen-and-ink drawings of ships hung on walls that looked as if they’d been papered with silver silk. A subdued set of black-and-gray nautical-theme fabrics had been used for the floor-to-ceiling draperies.

Sukie led me through a set of wooden doors in the corner of the room, through another corner drum tower and another set of doors, then into the bedroom whose door we’d passed earlier. This place, equally spacious, was an homage to lime and coral.

“This will be your suite,” she announced with a smile.

The lofty space reminded me of those magazine photos featuring Europe’s most elegant hotels. The walls were covered with glowing pale green silk. A pink-tinted marble fireplace graced the wall facing the massive four-poster bed. Between the bed and the fireplace, Chardé had thoughtfully grouped a pair of rose-and-lime chintz-covered wingback chairs. Against a wall with new windows looking out on the moat stood a long cherry-wood desk.

“Gorgeous, Sukie, really,” I gushed, overwhelmed.

“You haven’t seen your bathroom!” she exclaimed, eyes gleaming.

I demurred, recalling Eliot’s anxiety over the day’s event. I needed to get organized. And I really wanted to call Tom. “I’ll check the bathroom out later, if that’s okay.”

Sukie motioned me back to Arch’s room, through the
same pair of wooden doors set at a diagonal in the southeast corner of the room. We again moved into the drum tower, which I had now figured out was at the southeast corner of the castle. As in the well tower, the air was icy, although here, glass had been put up on the inside of each of the two small windows that flanked a fireplace built into the far wall. Sukie led me to an opening in the tower wall, then pointed straight along a short, narrow passageway that ended abruptly in a wall with a seat. Wait: There
had
been one of these in the well tower; Arch had backed up beside it after his mini-meltdown.

“This is the garderobe where we found the letter,” Sukie declared with a triumphant grin. She threw a rusty bolt on top of the toilet, lifted the lid, and pointed downward. I swallowed a sigh. Our hostess was determined to give me the tour, no matter what. I peered down the hole,
way
down, and listened, until I heard the slap of moat water against the shaft. I smiled, even though I was desperate to call Tom. “After six centuries,” Sukie said, “even after the shaft was broken into pieces to be moved from England,
even
after they reassembled the shaft here, the place stank.”

“I don’t understand why they didn’t clean up the shaft before they sent it over,” I commented. I realized the little hallway smelled powerfully of disinfectant.

“They weren’t Swiss,” she replied matter-of-factly

In his assigned room, Arch was running the bathroom fan full blast, a sure sign he was finishing his elaborate hairdressing routine, a regimen that started with mousse and ended with hairspray that acted like plaster of Paris. When he reappeared with his hair cemented into spikes, he was wearing khaki pants, a plaid shirt, and his white Elk Park Prep Fencing Team jacket.

“Those shafts aren’t dangerous?” I murmured to Sukie as we made our way back to the kitchen.

She shook her head. “We’re having them all covered
with Plexiglas before we open the conference center. The bottom of each shaft has a grille, to keep out rodents and such. The only dangerous place in the castle is the moat pump room. But don’t worry, it’s all locked up.”

I nodded as we came into the kitchen, where three of my boxes had appeared. Eliot was putting out a dish of crackers and a jar, the dark contents of which looked like homemade jelly.

“I’m not eating that,” Arch whispered to me.

“Wow!” I exclaimed over his announcement. “Mr. Hyde, is this another one of your famous preserves? Like the strawberry jam we had with the scones?”

“This is chokecherry jelly,” he said shyly, with a regal wave. “I also make fig preserves, blueberry jam, mint jelly, lemon curd—”

At that moment, Michaela Kirovsky clomped into the kitchen toting the last of my boxes. Abruptly, Eliot fell silent and bustled out the door.

Once again feeling responsible for someone else’s rudeness, I thanked Michaela profusely for her help. She waggled her head and told me not to mention it. I looked closely at her. When I’d first met her at Elk Park Prep and talked about the banquet, I’d judged her to be about sixty. Now I saw that the prematurely white hair made her look older than she was, probably forty-five. She had that slightly pudgy, built-like-a-brick body often seen in high-school athletic coaches. Her wrinkled baby-face was exceptionally pale. Like Arch, she wore the school fencing jacket and khakis. When she heaved her load up on the trestle table next to my three other boxes, Eliot flowed back into the kitchen, clutching another jar.

“I’m sure today’s luncheon will go beautifully. And we’re very excited about the fencing banquet. Please remember, though, Goldy,” he said as he placed the new offering—plum jam—on the table, “I want the Friday-night feast to conclude with a plum tart baked with
jewels inside.” He swept his hair back with his hand. I sighed: The fencing banquet was four days away, for crying out loud. “The jewels will be zirconia, of course, but the children don’t need to know that. That’s a typical Elizabethan treat,” he informed us with a smile, “to bake treasures into something sweet. Only they used
real
jewels, of course. And sometimes they put in
other
surprises, such as, shall we say, four-and-twenty blackbirds? Goldy, how soon will you be able to get your recipes?”

“As soon as I pick up my disk,” I replied. I fumbled inside the box containing my laptop to make sure I had my power cord, too. “I promise I won’t take long getting it,” I added firmly, before he could start fretting again.

“So you’ll return when?” Eliot asked anxiously.

“I’ll follow Michaela out,” I replied. “Worst-case scenario puts me back here by eight.”

“Eliot, darling,” Sukie murmured as her husband opened his mouth to protest. “The recipes can wait. You are too enthusiastic, sometimes. And—”

“That’s all your boxes,” Michaela interrupted.

“Thanks again,” I said, and meant it.

She nodded, warmed her hands at the hearth, and grinned at Arch. “Ready to go, mister? Blastoff is in seven minutes.”

Arch shouldered his pack, nodded a mature farewell to me, and told Michaela he’d meet her by the portcullis. He even managed to thank Sukie and Eliot before making his way out of the kitchen.

To me, Michaela said softly, “Eliot mentioned that someone took a shot at your house last night?”

“Yes,” I said. “The police don’t have any leads yet. But I took a call on my cell phone on the way over here. There’s something I need to warn you about.” All three faces became immediately curious. “My ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, has just been granted an early release from serving a sentence for assault. If he shows up
here, please do not let him in. I’m checking on the status of a restraining order,” I added. “He’ll have to see Arch at some point, but we haven’t figured that out yet.”

Their questions tumbled out as I put the chicken and other perishables into the refrigerator: Was John Richard the one who’d shot at our window? Did he know I was here at the castle? Did he know how to get here?

“We have no idea what the man looks like,” Eliot mused, his voice concerned. “If we could have a photograph …”

“Yes, definitely, no problem,” I replied. “I’ll get one when I pick up the disk.”

The snow had stopped as Michaela, Arch, and I drove off. My van followed Michaela’s Elk Park Prep minibus down the slick, winding driveway. Her tires cut twin black tracks in the pristine trail of snowy pavement. Soon the minibus was out of sight.

When I came through the front gate and crossed the bridge onto the state highway, I remembered the rental tables that were supposed to be at Hyde Chapel. I pressed the accelerator, determined to see what was going on. Or
not
going on, as the case might be.

As I drove up the road, I punched the cell phone buttons for Tom’s Atlantic City motel, on the remote chance he was still there. The man who answered said Tom had left several hours ago. I then tried the main number for Furman County government and entered the buttons for Pat Gerber’s extension at the district attorney’s office. Of course, since it was not quite seven, all I reached was her voice mail. I left a message: My ex-husband got an early release from prison, and a bullet shattered one of our windows at four this morning. With a temporary restraining order in place, what was our next step for visits with our son?

I disconnected as the chapel bridge across Cotton-wood Creek came into sight. Beyond the bridge, the
chapel’s delicate gray spires and arched stained-glass windows looked ethereal in the soft morning light. After auctioning off the Henry VIII letter, Eliot had given the Gothic chapel to the church, to offset his tax burden. In order to make Hyde Chapel a tourist attraction clients would associate with the castle conference center, Sukie had directed an extensive cleanup, and paid Chardé Lauderdale handsomely to decorate the place. The labyrinth had been the crowning centerpiece of the renovation. Saint Luke’s had been thrilled.