The Body in the Ivy (18 page)

“You've had enough cleaning up to do this morning,” Maggie said. “I don't mean to sound callous—Phoebe was right to use the word. Elaine and all of us have been reacting as if Bobbi wasn't a person. A person who was very much alive at this time yesterday.” She started wiping the counter with swift, efficient motions. Faith imagined it was the way she dealt with the endless paperwork and other tasks that composed her job, her remarks the other night to the contrary.

“Where is everyone?” Faith said.

“Upstairs getting dressed. Trying to figure out how to make the best of what is a horrible situation.” Maggie sounded as if she were trying to do the same.

“Did you know Bobbi Dolan? After college? Was she an active alum?”

Maggie seemed startled by Faith's questions. “No one here has been active save myself, of course, and Elaine, only we didn't know it was Elaine making such generous contributions. I believe Bobbi has been on our class missing list almost since graduation.”

“Missing list?”

“No address, no information. Some alums go to great lengths to make the list,” she said ruefully.

The deluge of magazines and fund appeals from the institutions that Tom and Faith had attended that regularly flooded their mailbox made the notion attractive, but Faith was astonished that someone could disappear in the current information age when privacy had been virtually clicked away.

“So the last time you'd seen her before this week was at graduation?”

Maggie nodded. “We were roommates freshman year and got along all right, but she was a bit like a puppy dog, trying to get out—or in her case in—always nipping at our heels.”

It was a strange simile, and demeaning, Faith thought. “Your group?”

“I suppose you could call it Prin's group. She was the center.” Maggie smiled in reminiscence. “I was active on campus. Class president, student body president, lots of activities. Chris lived in the greenhouses, but was still lots of fun. Gwen wasn't a grind, but she was hell-bent on summa and made it. Lucy, Elaine, little Phoebe—we were all friends. Rachel, too, although her music came first always. Then after her brother died, she kept to herself. It was a mistake for her to come back to Pelham—he died the summer after our sophomore year. I don't
know why she did. The people she was closest to were in New York.”

“How sad. He must have been very young. Was it an illness or an accident? That poor family…” Faith thought of Rachel's face, the one in her publicity photos and the one before her as she came through the kitchen door this morning. There was something buried deep in her eyes, something suggestive of perpetual mourning, of loss.

“It was suicide. He'd just finished his freshman year at Harvard.”

“Are you talking about Max?” Chris had entered the room. She was wearing a worn navy turtleneck and jeans.

“Yes. It really was very tragic. He was well on his way to being world famous.” Maggie addressed Faith. “He was a pianist. Very talented.” She was speaking in her public, Madam President voice, as if the room were filled with potential donors.

“It
was
tragic and I'm sure Rachel wouldn't want us to be talking about it. The gardens will be destroyed and the oak outside my window has lost a huge branch.” She pointedly changed the subject.

Maggie raised her eyebrows and said, “I certainly didn't intend any disrespect. We all know why—”

“I said we shouldn't mention it,” Chris said coldly.

There was a brief moment when the air hung heavy with emptiness, then Maggie said, “Well. I'm off to look for something to read. Everything I brought seems uninteresting and it's going to be a long day.”

It already was. Not even noon, Faith noted, looking at her watch.

“I wonder if I might have a piece of fruit? I'm not hungry, but if I don't eat, my system can sometimes go out of whack,” Chris said.

“Of course. I'm sorry I didn't make that clearer to everyone, but please feel free to come and eat whatever you want day or night. There are some nice peaches and I picked more strawberries late yesterday. Let me cut some up for you.”

Faith's initial impression that Chris had been ill returned. The woman looked exhausted. She thanked Faith and sat down on a stool by the island. Setting the fruit down in front of Chris, Faith was about to start asking about Bobbi Dolan—how well Chris had known her—when she broached the subject herself.

“Pelham was the wrong school for Bobbi. Wrong for others of us, too, but particularly wrong for her. She was bright enough, but never seemed at ease. The cashmere-sweater-and-pearls girls, like those old Breck shampoo ads, were pretty overwhelming for her. Even though she'd gone to a fancy private school. We were both from Pennsylvania. I went to private school, too, but it was run by the Quakers and we were definitely not encouraged to think about material goods.”

“But Bobbi had been?”

Chris nodded. “Her father had made a great deal of money quickly, and I gather Bobbi's life changed from running through a sprinkler in someone's backyard to swim meets at the club. But she sounded as if she'd found some kind of peace out in California and she was extremely good at what she did.”

“She gave you a massage?”

“Yes, Shiatsu. And it wasn't just the physical well-being I experienced afterward—gardeners have chronic back troubles—but the mental state I found myself in. Almost a kind of euphoria. And she knew it, shared it. It was as if she had given me a gift.”

Someone was coming up from the ground floor. It was Elaine.

“We're all gathering in the living room to talk. You, too, Mrs. Fairchild.” The peremptory tone of her voice was harsh and in apparent recognition, she added, “Please.”

This was possibly the only occasion Faith could recall when offering food seemed out of place. Gwen was sitting in the large chair by the fireplace where Elaine had sat the first night. Phoebe, Chris, and Rachel were spread out on one of the large sofas. Maggie and Elaine were in adjoining easy chairs. Lucy sat in a straight-backed chair near the door. Someone had lighted the fire and the flames were snapping, adding to the noise of the rain slashing against the windows. Glancing at the flowers on the mantel, Faith realized that she had forgotten to clean up the spilled ones and went back into the kitchen for a paper towel. When she returned, Chris was righting the vases. She'd picked up the flowers.

“The roses have been out of water too long, I'm afraid. A shame—Indian Sunset and Carte Noire—two of my favorites. They still smell lovely, though.”

Faith wiped up the water and took the roses from Chris. They
were
fragrant, but under the sweet scent, she detected an odor of decay.

Elaine was speaking when Faith entered the room
again, selecting a chair that gave her a view of everyone.

“My hope is that we can join together and turn things around. We can't bring Bobbi back, sadly, or change the weather, but we can get to know each other all over again. Draw on our life experiences since Pelham and share the wisdom we've gleaned.”

“You sound like a heroine in one of your books—or that obnoxious poster, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,'” Gwen said sarcastically. “I don't know how much wisdom I've ‘gleaned' since Pelham, but one thing I've learned is to trust my own instincts. And my instincts are telling me to go upstairs, do whatever work I can that doesn't require an Internet connection on my laptop, and wait out the storm. With my door locked.” She got up and moved toward the door.

“Wait,” called Elaine. “What are you suggesting? I won't have my guests upset by anyone, even you, Ms. Moneybags.” Her cheeks were scarlet with annoyance.

Gwen sighed audibly. “I don't know what I'm suggesting, but the sooner you tell us why you really invited us all here the better. Bobbi's dead, your handyman has gone walkabout, and if I could figure out a way that you might have engineered it, I'd blame you for the storm, too.”

Faith was quick to note the use of the word
too
—apparently so did Elaine. Her face now a fiery red but her voice frosty, she said, “I invited you to try to renew old ties, pure and simple.”

Lucy was shaking her head. She had been drinking from a mug. As Faith had passed her, there had been
the sound of ice cubes clinking together; it obviously contained something even stronger than the coffee left in the pot. “I'm with Gwen on this one. Why did you wait all these years for a reunion? And why lure most of us here with such specious pretexts? It's all about Prin, isn't it? It was always all about Prin.” She spoke with great deliberation, enunciating each word. Faith wondered how much “coffee” she'd had to drink. After the morning they'd had, Faith wasn't surprised that Lucy might want a shot of something, but this seemed more excessive than that.

“Prin? What would this have to do with Prin? Or let me rephrase that, if anyone here thinks that my invitation has something to do with my late sister, speak up.”

Gwen opened the door. “Play all the word games, and any other games you may have in your twisted mind, Elaine. I'll be in my room,” she said and left.

Elaine attempted a bright smile, taking in the whole room. Her expression was, however, more of a grimace. “Gwen always was a party pooper. ‘I have to study,' remember? Now, I don't see why we can't have a good time together. Perhaps Chris could tell us some more about all those wonderful gardens she's visited and her own, of course. Then, Rachel could play later this afternoon.”

“Rachel is not playing—at any of this. I'll be in my room, too,” Rachel said. As she got up, Chris followed suit. “I don't feel like lecturing just now. I'll be upstairs, as well.”

Faith realized she needed to speak. With the flock scattering fast, she had no idea what kinds of meals, if
any, she should be preparing. They were bound to get hungry at some point, though.

“Would you like me to bring trays up or will you be coming down for…” She hesitated. It was past lunch-time, but nowhere near time for dinner, despite the darkness outside. “Meals?”

“Why don't you ring a bell? There must be one somewhere. Serve the food buffet style like the first night, then each of us can do as we choose. It doesn't seem right to make you cart trays up and down for us.” Maggie was moving into her institutional, organizational mode.

“I don't mind doing trays,” Faith said.

“No, Maggie's right. That won't do. Use the gong again, the one in the dining room,” Elaine said. “It will be like the old days. Our housemother always sounded a gong for dinner,” she explained to Faith.

No one seemed to be objecting. “All right, then. In the meantime, there is plenty to eat if anyone is hungry now. Fruit, cheese, crackers, cookies—”

Maggie interrupted her. “I'm sure we can fend for ourselves.”

Faith wondered if this was a dismissal. It felt like one, but she wanted to find out what the others were going to be doing.

Phoebe spoke up. “I came because I wanted to meet you, Elaine. I mean you as Barbara. I've read all your books and I'm a huge fan. I'd be happy just to sit right here by the fire and talk with you. Maybe you could do a reading.” She sounded wistful.

“Of course I will, just for you, Phebes, and anyone else who cares to join us.” She looked at the remaining
women. Maggie leaned a fraction of an inch closer to the author from her adjoining chair. “That sounds delightful,” she said. Faith had the distinct impression Maggie would sit on the author's lap or at the least perch on the arm of her chair if she could.
Chair
being the operative word. A corpse, a storm—Pelham still came first.

Lucy was definitely more than a little drunk. “Don't worry, Miss Maggie, Elaine isn't about to go back on her promise. Pelham will get the money,” she said.

“I haven't been thinking about that at all; I'm a fan, too, and I'd love to hear about the process,” Maggie shot back. “How Elaine gets her ideas.”

“What about you, Lucy?” Elaine asked.

“Oh, I'll be around. Don't you worry your pretty little head about me. I already know how you get your ideas.”

 

Faith put out some food on the island in the kitchen and made fresh coffee. Then she went into the pantry/ china closet to get clean cups and plates. Tucked almost out of sight next to the shelves at the far end, there was a pegboard with hooks, each holding a key. They were the keys to each room, as well as other doors. Each was clearly labeled on the board and with a tag on each key. The bedrooms by their wallpaper patterns, “The Strawberry Thief,” “Rosa Mundi,” and so forth. There had been a key in the door of each room. These were duplicates. Faith looked at them carefully. One space was labeled “Master.” A master key or the key to Elaine's master bedroom suite? She started to leave, then turned around and pocketed the key to her own room, “Ivy.”

At the door leading to the living room, she could hear Elaine's voice reading aloud. She did it well; no stammering and her voice had a pleasant pitch. A group of friends listening to a book on tape come to life on a stormy afternoon. There shouldn't have been anything wrong with the picture—but there was.

With that group occupied and the rest sequestered in their rooms, she had a little time. Taking some rain clothes from the closet, she went back to the pool room. This time she didn't switch on the lights. She went to one of the outside doors and pushed it open. The storm had picked up speed; the wind howled. All the patio furniture was now piled in an untidy tangle against the house. Several planters were broken; all of them overturned. She trained the beam of her flashlight on the place she'd noted earlier, the place where the tall grass looked different. It was harder to detect now, but she could still see it. The wind was behind her and propelled her forward. She followed the track for as long as she could, then the wind changed and the rain began to sting her face like a swarm of hostile bees. She could barely keep her eyes open to see and turned around to head back into the house. She'd try again, and again and again, if necessary.