Swan for the Money (4 page)

Chapter 6

“What do you mean, a new development?” I asked. “The innocent tourist act wasn’t very believable to start with. Why not drop it and tell me what you’re really up to?”

Caroline and Dr. Blake exchanged a look and then Caroline sighed.

“As I suppose you guessed, we’re actually not here out of idle curiosity,” she said. “Clarence Rutledge is concerned about whether she’s treating her animals properly.”

“So, this is actually a covert animal welfare mission,” I said, with a sigh. “And you’re using me as cover to help you infiltrate enemy territory.”

“Precisely,” my grandfather said.

“Does this have anything to do with the missing dog?” I asked.

“Missing dog?” my grandfather said.

“Missing as in stolen, you old fool. The dognapping Meg told us about. Not specifically,” Caroline added to me. “We’re not ignoring her safety, of course, but the chief is on that case, and there’s the welfare of all the other animals to think about.”

I would have liked to ask what reason Clarence had to worry about Mrs. Winkleson’s animals, but we were approaching the front of the house. Mrs. Winkleson was standing at the top of her sweeping white marble front steps in a neat black-and-white checked suit and an oversized black hat.

I parked, as I usually did, slightly to the side, where a stretch of white brick wall would screen my car from the front steps. Of course she’d probably already seen its bright blue color during my drive up from the gate, but I figured out of sight, out of mind. A single police car, presumably belonging to the two officers doing the search, was the lot’s only other occupant.

Of course, there was nothing I could do about the umbrellas. Caroline’s was hot pink, and my grandfather’s bright blue and emblazoned with the logo of the Blake Foundation. Lacking an umbrella, I settled for pulling up the hood of my slicker.

We strolled around to the front of the house and waved to our hostess. I noticed that a black-clad butler was holding a black umbrella over her and getting soaked himself, poor man.

Like most of Mrs. Winkleson’s staff, the butler was exceedingly short— so short he almost had to stand on tiptoe to let the umbrella clear her hat. I suspected that she only hired short people because she didn’t like being towered over. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but held herself so rigidly upright that she gave the impression of greater height until you found yourself standing beside her and had to fight the urge to lean down when talking to her.

“Ms. Langslow,” she called down, with a slight nod. I suspected that the nod was calculated to convey the precise amount of respect due to someone in my social position. Mother would no doubt have known whether to bristle with resentment or beam in satisfaction. Being largely oblivious to such social niceties, I just smiled.

“May we come in and sit down for a moment?” I called up. “I have something to ask you.” Sitting down, I’d have a better chance of talking her into hosting the party. At five-ten, I annoyed her, and since my grandfather loomed well over six feet, he’d probably send her into a rage if he stood up too long.

Mrs. Winkleson nodded, and turned to go back into her house.

Caroline and Dr, Blake were standing there, umbrellas in hand, eyeing the marble steps.

“You two can start exploring if you like,” I said. “Or wait here in the car. I’m just going to ask her about hosting the garden club buffet.”

“No, let’s beard the lioness in her den,” Dr. Blake said, offering Caroline his arm.

“More like a zebress, don’t you think?” Caroline said. “And we can offer her our sympathies about poor little Minnie.”

“Mimi,” I corrected.

I knew better than to offer to help them with the steps. Both of them were too independent for their own good. But I fell into step behind them, where I would have at least a fighting chance of catching them if they slipped and fell on the rain-slick steps.

At the top of the marble steps— seventeen of them— a broad marble terrace ran across the front of a white-pillared portico. If you focused just on the portico, the house bore a striking resemblance to the way Monticello would look if you painted all the red brick parts white. If you looked at it from farther away, you noticed that the elegant neoclassic portico was stuck onto a disproportionately large white cell-block of a house, making the poor thing look rather like a graceful little tugboat trying to guide an oil tanker into port. I felt so sorry for the poor little portico that I always tried not to look at it until I reached the terrace.

Mrs. Winkleson was waiting at the top of the steps. I’d never actually seen her go up or down them, and was more than half convinced she had an elevator hidden somewhere in the house that no one but she was allowed to use.

“Mrs. Winkleson, this is Caroline Willner and my grandfather, Dr. Montgomery Blake,” I said.

Mrs. Winkleson turned her gaze from me to them, as if waiting for them to perform. Luckily my grandfather was slightly winded from the climb and only nodded at her, rather than attempting the Vulcan Death Grip, as Michael and I had nicknamed his excessively firm handshake. Caroline leaped into the breach.

“What a lovely estate!” she exclaimed. “And it was so gracious of you to agree to hold the flower show here!”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Winkleson said. Her tone was rather stiff, but for Mrs. Winkleson, this was relatively gracious, so I could tell Caroline’s enthusiasm had charmed her.

“Let’s go in,” Mrs. Winkleson said, and turned on her heel to lead the way.

I stepped aside to let the others go in first and turned to look down toward the barns where we’d be holding the flower show. My heart sped up slightly when I saw that there was a police car parked by the barns, with a uniformed county deputy getting out of it. Was this just part of the search, or were the barns becoming a key part of the dognapping investigation? If that happened, there was no telling how much damage it would do to my plans for the show.

Then the deputy tripped over his own feet and I realized it was only Sammy Wendell, who had volunteered to help out with the setup for the rose show. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that he was still available to volunteer or concerned that the chief hadn’t cancelled all leave to mount an all-out investigation into the disappearance of Mrs. Winkleson’s dog.

Sammy walked over to a large pickup truck whose bed was piled high with folding cafeteria tables. My cousin Horace, wearing the battered gorilla suit that might as well have been his uniform, was letting down the truck’s tailgate, and Sammy ambled over to help him unload.

No other cars or volunteers visible, but most of them would be in the way anyway if they arrived before the tables were set up. Sammy and Horace could handle that. I turned back to follow Mrs. Winkleson inside.

As usual, I mentally kicked myself for not remembering to bring a sweater, though I was never sure whether the chill I felt on entering Mrs. Winkleson’s house was entirely due to her overuse of air conditioning. The stark black and white décor and her own chilly personality probably contributed just as much.

“What a lovely house,” Caroline exclaimed. Knowing her, I could tell she was just barely restraining herself from adding something like, “Too bad the way you’ve decorated it looks like a cross between a funeral parlor and a museum.”

“Pawn to king four,” my grandfather muttered, looking down at the marble floor, which was laid out in large black and white squares and did rather look like an oversized chess board.

Around us, the walls and woodwork were all painted stark white. A white-painted chandelier hung from the ceiling, decorated with a few strands of jet beads. In four little alcoves, recessed spotlights highlighted large, elegant vases made of black pottery or glass. At one side of the foyer, an enormous black-painted Victorian hall stand was festooned with a variety of black hats, black gloves, black umbrellas, black coats, and one lone white silk scarf.

“You may put your wraps there,” Mrs. Winkleson said, waving at the hall stand. I reluctantly shed my parka, and hung it on one of the lower hooks. Dr. Blake deposited his umbrella there, and Caroline was following suit when one of the gloomy black garments fell on her— a voluminous cloak. It took both my efforts and my grandfather’s to extricate her from its massive folds, while Mrs. Winkleson looked on disapprovingly. Or maybe she disapproved of my sturdy hiking boots. If that was it, tough luck. They were the only sensible shoes for dealing with the amount of mud I’d be encountering at her farm, and I’d wiped them carefully before coming inside.

Then again, was she frowning from disapproval or worry? Maybe she was thinking of her missing dog.

Strange, though, that I’d never seen any sign of a dog on my previous visits. No water bowls or chew toys; not even a leash hanging on the hall stand. Then again, I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Winkleson taking any chances that a dog might shed, pee, or chew on the furniture in any of her immaculate public rooms. She probably had a dog-proofed room somewhere for the Maltese. Maybe even a canine suite. The place was big enough.

It suddenly came to me how one of the maids had come to find the ransom note at four in the morning. By that hour, they were already up cleaning.

“This way,” Mrs. Winkleson said, when we’d finally rescued Caroline from the rain cape. We followed her into her living room— half an acre of black leather, white brocade, black marble tile, white carpeting and black lacquer furniture. Dr. Blake chose a black leather armchair that I knew from experience was a lot less comfortable than it looked, while Caroline and I both perched on the edge of a white brocade couch. Mrs. Winkleson took a chair across the room, a mere fifteen feet from us. For her, that was almost intimate.

Out in the foyer, I saw a tiny, black-uniformed maid scuttle out and begin mopping up the water our wraps and umbrellas had shed. Mrs. Winkleson spotted her, and glanced at her watch, as if timing how long it had taken the maid to arrive. I hoped for her sake— for all our sakes— that she’d been fast enough. I’d seen her give a maid a ten-minute tongue-lashing for breaking a teacup, and had only just barely kept my mouth shut, partly because I didn’t dare do anything that would make her cancel the rose show, and partly because I was afraid if I offended her she’d take it out on the maid. But I wasn’t sure I could hold my temper any longer if she put on a repeat performance.

“The garden club would like to ask you another favor,” I said, launching directly into the business of the day. “They were going to hold their cocktail reception at my parents’ farm, but there’s a problem.”

“What sort of a problem?”

I was hoping she wouldn’t ask that. I wasn’t sure she’d understand Mother’s squeamishness about the manure smell, and I certainly didn’t want the whole world to know that my parents weren’t speaking to each other because of it.

“An odor problem,” I said. “It’s . . . um . . . well, have you ever had a septic field go bad?”

Her face wrinkled into an expression of disgust. Caroline and Dr. Blake looked at me with amusement.

“I won’t go into the details,” I said. After all, if I quit now, I hadn’t actually told a lie.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Winkleson murmured.

“But there’s no way we can have the party there, and we thought— what a great opportunity to let the exhibitors see a little more of your fabulous estate. And of course it won’t cost you anything— the catering’s all being paid for by the garden club, and they’ll do a thorough cleanup after the party’s over. In fact, the whole garden club will do whatever’s necessary to ensure that the cocktail party is absolutely no trouble at all to you.”

She frowned.

“Of course, everyone would completely understand if you didn’t feel up to it under the circumstances,” Caroline put in. “I’m sure you must be worried sick about your poor puppy.”

“Then again, it might be comforting to have a distraction at such a difficult time,” I said, looking pointedly at Caroline, in the hopes that she’d get the message— if she couldn’t help me convince Mrs. Winkleson, at least she could refrain from undermining my efforts.

Mrs. Winkleson’s face took on the prunelike look that signaled she was engaged in serious thought. Dr. Blake was scowling in disbelief, but Caroline and I kept our faces fixed in expressions of eager pleading. I found I was holding my breath.

“Well . . . yes,” she said at last. “I suppose that would be acceptable.”

“That’s great,” I said, standing up to make my exit while the going was good.

“As long as everyone wears black and white to the festivity,” Mrs. Winkleson went on.

I should have guessed.

“I know I’ve agreed to relax my standards for the show itself,” she went on. “One cannot expect proper behavior from the masses. But members of the garden club and cultured rosarians— well, I’m sure they will understand.”

I was opening my mouth to protest when Caroline chimed in.

“Of course,” she said. “Very suitable for an eve ning event. We’ll go start spreading the word. I’m sure everyone will be very grateful. Won’t they, Meg?”

“You can’t imagine,” I said.

“So gracious of you under the circumstances,” Caroline said. “So what is the news about your poor puppy?”

“It was a purebred Maltese,” Mrs. Winkleson said. “You can’t imagine how expensive it was.”

“I’m sure Chief Burke will find him— er, her,” I said.

“I’m not,” Mrs.Winkleson said, with a snort.

“You must be so worried about her,” Caroline said. “Was there really a ransom note?”

“They didn’t ask for ransom,” Mrs.Winkleson said. “Just made vague threats. ‘Don’t tell the police, keep your mouth shut or else.’ ”

“Smart of you to ignore that and tell them anyway,” I said.

“I can’t very well file an insurance claim without a police report, now can I?” Mrs. Winkleson said.

Conversation came to an abrupt halt with that. No doubt Dr. Blake and Caroline were thinking much the same thing I was— that perhaps Mrs. Winkleson’s dog was better off with the dognappers.

“When was she taken?” Caroline finally asked.