The Spellmans Strike Again (4 page)

As for me, I see Henry as little as possible. I find it’s healthier for my ego. When you’re thirty-one years old and someone tells you you’re not a grown-up, it stings. Now, at the age of thirty-two, the worst of the sting was gone.

Besides, I had matured considerably in the intervening months and was about to take over the family business. In fact, at that very moment I was wearing a tucked-in shirt that was relatively wrinkle free, and my hair was combed. I could certainly handle a simple telephone conversation.

“Isabel?” Henry said into the receiver. I guess I had been silent awhile.

“Sorry. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to speak to you.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“In person.”

“Why? Are the phones tapped and I don’t know about it?”

Sound of throat clearing. “Meet me for a drink after work.”

“I’ll be at the Philosopher’s Club
⁴
at—”

“Not there!”
Henry said too quickly and with a buzz of hostility.

“Then you better be buying, because I’ve grown accustomed to free booze and I have to pay rent these days.”

“Yes. I’m buying,” Henry said, sounding like he was regretting this entire conversation.

“Okay. Where?”

“Edinburgh Castle.”

“I thought that place was too divey for you.”

“It is. But I want
you
to be comfortable.”

“How kind.”

“Six o’clock?”

“Six thirty,” I replied, only to assert a share of control.

UNHAPPY HOUR

It was still light outside, even though the fog had rolled in, but the interior of the bar felt like the night was nearing its end. I spotted Henry at a booth in the back. He was easy to spot, being the most well-groomed patron in the establishment.

He’d already started drinking, but there was a glass of some kind of whiskey and another glass of ice waiting for me.

“I ordered for you,” Henry said. “Hope you don’t mind. I just got the booze you usually steal from your brother’s house.
¹
Wasn’t sure what you wanted.”

“The question is: What do
you
want?” I said.

I took a sip of the excellent whiskey and studied Henry, trying to get an angle on him.

“All I want is to have a drink with a friend,” he said.

“Then you should have called one.”

“We were friends.”

“Were,” I repeated.

“Well, I would like to be friends again. What will it take?”

I drained my bourbon and contemplated the scratched wood table for the answer. It wasn’t there.

“Another drink wouldn’t hurt,” I replied.

Henry slid a twenty across the table and told me to order whatever I wanted. He still wasn’t halfway finished with his whiskey, so I didn’t even take his order.

At the bar I considered the most expensive options, but then I chose the house label, because I didn’t want Henry to think that his bribe had worked. I returned to the table with ample change.

Henry sniffed my drink and instantly got the message.

“How can we work this out?” he asked.

“My brother says I should start making friends my own age.”

“Ouch,” the inspector replied with mock injury.

“We’re not enemies,” I offered, thinking that was friendly enough.

“I want to be more than enemies.”

“Archenemies? I suppose we could head in that direction. But you’d have to do something pretty awful for us to drive down that road.”

“I was thinking in the other direction,” Henry answered, not amused.

“We can be friendly acquaintances,” I suggested, realizing that I had found myself in the midst of negotiating the terms of a friendship. How odd. Although it’s something my sister and Henry have done on numerous occasions.

“No,” Henry flatly replied.

“Well, that’s my best offer,” I said.

“No, it isn’t,” Henry said with an interrogation-room stare.

I was unprepared for this type of meeting. I figured I held all the cards. Therefore, I would control the conversation. Something was going on here—the power had shifted but I couldn’t trace when it had happened.

“I’m going to leave now,” I announced.

“See you soon,” Henry answered.

“Not that soon.”

I left my half-empty drink on the table and Henry opened the book he had been reading when I entered. He made no move to leave, which I found odd since this wasn’t his kind of bar and at the moment the smell of hops mixed with something sour was harsh. When I exited, it was dark outside. I didn’t have to adjust to the light and therefore didn’t have to adjust back to the darkness when I returned to the bar five minutes later.

I stood beside Henry, casting a shadow over his literature. He looked up and smiled.

“Forget something?”

“I want my keys and my wallet back,” I demanded.

“Have a seat,” Henry calmly replied, “and we’ll talk about it.”

“No,” I said. “Just give ’em back.”

“Or what. You’ll call the cops?” Henry chuckled at his little joke.

I sat down in a huff and glared at him.

“Have you gone mad?” I asked.

“Nope,” Henry replied. “I’ve just figured out the Spellman way of doing things.”

It was then I realized that this particular tactic—the coercion/blackmail/threat technique of reviving a friendship—was exactly what Rae did to return to Henry’s good graces. It had worked on him; why wouldn’t it work on me? I had to admit that I was both impressed and intrigued that Henry would do something so out of character just to keep me around. If I’m honest with myself, which if you know me you know I’m not all that often, I missed Henry too.

Henry slid a fresh drink across the table. I took a sip and realized it was the good stuff again.

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I waited for my captor to speak.

“Now tell me, Isabel. What’s new?”

A GENTLEMAN’S GENTLEMAN

Before my meeting with Mr. Winslow, my mother insisted I drop by the house for a personal inspection. Mom took one look at the dress I was wearing, pulled out the iron and ironing board, and told me to take it off. I stood in just a slip and heels in the foyer while she reironed my dress. Just as the lingerie show was ending and I was slipping the dress over my head, one of our lawyer clients, Gerard Mitchell, exited the office.

“Hi, Isabel,” Gerard said nonchalantly as he departed.

After he left, my mother whispered, “Recently divorced.”

“So?” I replied.

“So, I’m thinking he should be your first lawyer date,” Mom casually replied.

“Mom, I have a boyfriend. I’m not going to go on dates with other men.”

“I think you are,” Mom replied. “I know it was a long time ago, sweetie, but I don’t think we need the events of Prom Night 1994 to see the light of day. Do you?”

“You wouldn’t,” I replied.

“I would,” Mom answered. “I’ve been holding on to this nugget for Rae’s entire lifetime, just waiting for the perfect opportunity.”

My mom’s threat must have drained the color from my face.

“You could use some blush,” she added, scrounging through her purse.

I swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump in my throat. While blackmail is standard fare in the Spellman household, most of my misdeeds had already been exposed. Honestly, I had almost forgotten about this one. And this one was probably the worst of all.

Mom put some color on my cheeks while I batted her hand away. Then she gave me the lowdown on my impending meeting.

“Remember, Izzy. This is important. Mr. Winslow has been our client for seven years. He might be suffering from the early stages of dementia—it’s really hard to tell with him. But he is always polite, usually serves some food and drink at meetings, and he always pays his bill on time. Don’t fuck this up, sweetie.”

I arrived at Mr. Franklin Winslow’s obscene mansion in Pacific Heights at precisely twelve fifteen
P.M.
I pulled into his driveway, delighting in one of those rare occasions when parking is not a challenge.

I was greeted at the door by the wary housekeeper, Mrs. Elizabeth Enright. Only Enright and the absent valet, Mason Graves, have been in Mr. Winslow’s employment for more than eleven months. The housekeeper had logged five years and the valet eight—relatively brief employments considering how old Mr. Winslow is and how long he has resided at that residence. His previous valet had been with him since he was in his early thirties and died at the ripe old age of eighty-five. I gathered it was a crushing loss, but one that was tempered by his employment of Mason Graves, whom I gathered had been a solid replacement.

Judging purely by the scowl on her face, the housekeeper wasn’t pleased to see me. Since that’s a phenomenon I’m not unfamiliar with, I wasn’t offended. Otherwise I might have taken issue with the scones she served, which I’m pretty certain were scrounged from the back of the freezer and probably baked when I was still in my twenties. In the interest of full disclosure, I ate them anyway because I was starving.

I waited fifteen minutes for Mr. Winslow to make an appearance, which was just enough time to take the edge off my hunger and catch Mrs. Enright peering in on me surreptitiously, although not that surreptitiously, since I spotted her.

Mr. Winslow was old, as I expected, and dressed in a mismatch of evening wear, business clothes, and something that I can only assume is called a smoking jacket, but my familiarity with that fashion statement was limited to stoned viewings of
Masterpiece Theatre
(or maybe it was parodies of
Masterpiece Theatre
from reruns of
The Muppet Show
). One could hardly call me an expert, is my point. Aside from Mr. Winslow’s complicated, mismatched ensemble, I would discover other incongruities to fill the time.

As Winslow descended his circular staircase, I got to my feet out of courtesy. He was tall and slim and seemed to be gray all over, including his clothes. I estimated his age to be in the midseventies, but his gait was that of a much younger man. Some might say he was in sore need of a haircut, but I couldn’t decide if that was his foppish style or negligent grooming. He was too thin and I found myself considering that I’d lose my appetite too if a rude woman were serving me stale scones all the time. But he didn’t exactly look malnourished, just Peter O’Toole, I’d-rather-have-a-drink thin, and Mr. Winslow’s posture was exquisite. But then I think English people haven’t taken to slouching the way North Americans have.
¹

When Winslow finally reached me, he said, “My dear, a pleasure to see you,” and then he kissed my hand, looked me up and down, and wrinkled his brow. “You look so young and big and well fed.”

“Thank you,” I hesitantly replied, since “What are you getting at?” would have sounded unprofessional.

“Sit down, sit down,” Mr. Winslow said, waving me back into my chair. “You’ve done something different with your hair.”

I hadn’t, but it’s best not to argue with clients, especially on the first meeting. “Something. I’ve definitely done something with it.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure seeing you again, Olivia,” Mr. Winslow said, and then I solved my very first mystery of the day.

“Mr. Winslow,” I interrupted. “I’m Is-a-bel Spellman, Albert and Olivia’s daugh-ter.”

Mr. Winslow stared at me for an uncomfortably long time, shook his head sadly as if fighting tears, and said, “I couldn’t find my glasses this morning.”

“They’re on top of your head,” I replied.

Mr. Winslow relocated his glasses and took me in one more time.

“I see it now. You are not Olivia. Your mother is a very beautiful woman.”

He said it plainly, not rudely, but sometimes the content is more relevant than the delivery.

“I hope you’re not disappointed,” I replied, insulted but holding it in. “I believe my mother told you that I would be meeting you today.”

“Without Mason, I’m afraid that my entire life is in disarray.”

Mrs. Enright hovered with more tea. Mr. Winslow waved her away with a look of distrust and suggested we move into his study, where our meeting could be more private. I suddenly realized why my mom enjoyed these Winslow meetings so much. It was like briefly inhabiting a life-sized game of
Clue
.

Mr. Winslow has employed Spellman Investigations throughout the years to investigate bad domestic help so that he can clean house with a clear conscience. The problem is he’s
always
cleaning house, with the exception of his absent valet, Mason, and Mrs. Enright. No other current employee had lasted longer than a year, which meant that no one—other than Mason, the unspoken head of the household—fully understood how to keep this compound running. And now the house, the staff, and its owner had found themselves living in a state of chaos. Although I have discovered that chaos is relative. Nothing in Winslow’s home seemed amiss to me besides Winslow himself.

Ultimately, my client’s primary problem was the absence of his not-so-longtime “gentleman’s gentleman,” Mason Graves. Recently Mason’s mother had taken ill and Mason had to return home to England for a few months to care for her. In the meantime, Mr. Winslow was sharing his home with a furtive housekeeper and a handful of strangers.

When it came down to it, Mr. Winslow wanted me to find him a temporary valet, but not just any valet: a valet/spy who could make sure that the support staff wasn’t plotting against him at every turn and that the house and the man of the house were kept in working order. When I left Mr. Winslow’s home, I had just the valet in mind. I also had two messages on my voice mail, followed by a text message that read: “If the heat doesn’t kill me, the boredom will.” I decided I should save a life before tackling my next line of business.

PHONE CALL
FROM THE EDGE #17

One of my best friends is old—like, really old. And you could say we have nothing in common except a mutual interest in keeping me out of jail. He was my pro bono attorney. I’d met him on a random surveillance and he later helped with some pesky harassment charges. Once the case was closed, we started having lunch. Then I had his driver’s license revoked and then I persuaded Morty to move to Florida against all his wishes, since it was the only thing that would keep his marriage (a long and solid one at that) together. If you look at just the bullet points, I guess I don’t sound like the kind of friend you’d want on your side. If you want more information, you know what you need to do.