To the Manor Dead (5 page)

I got a lousy
night’s sleep—I kept running things over in my mind again and again. That whole crazy household, what George had said about it maybe not being a suicide, the sight of Daphne hanging from the rafters in that crumbling summerhouse, the look on her face. In the morning I felt a vague unease—coupled with an intense desire to understand what had happened and to somehow make things right. It was the same feeling I used to get when a particularly touching client got under my skin. I never quite managed that whole “don’t take it home with you” thing that was a prerequisite for a sane career in the psychiatric field.

I dragged my ass out of bed and checked myself out in the mirror. Not a pretty picture. I tended to sleep in the same position—curled on my left side—and over the years I’d developed a long morning-wrinkle that ran down my left cheek and was complemented by a section of hair on the back of my head that stuck straight out. When I was in my teens and twenties guys used to tell me I was “cute.” Cute doesn’t age well, but I guess my face had some character—as in “character actor.” Whatever. Aging ain’t pretty, but it beats the alternative.

My place was big, sprawling. The building was built in the 1890s as a hardware store and the upstairs was originally used for storage. It had a loft-like, high-ceilinged front room with a row of windows overlooking the street, and a kitchen at the opposite end. There were three bedrooms, a bath, and a porch off the back. It was about ten times the size of my Brooklyn apartment and I felt like I could breath easier, stand taller—and since I was five-foot-four every centimeter mattered. It had the added advantage of serving as a way station for my inventory, and I played a permanent game of musical furniture.

I made a pot of coffee. It was almost ten o’clock. I like to sleep on the late side. When people rave about how beautiful the world looks in the early morning, I tell them it looks just as beautiful in the late morning. George was picking me up for the town meeting at ten-thirty, and that kid Josie was coming in for her trial day. There was no chance she would work out, but at least my conscience wouldn’t bug me.

I gulped two cups of coffee, wolfed down a banana, fed my menagerie, took a quick shower, threw on some jeans and a shirt, and headed downstairs just as Josie arrived at the shop. She had cleaned herself up, and looked nervous as hell.

“Morning.”

“Good morning, Ms. Petrocelli.”

“It’s Janet. And you look nice. All right, here’s the drill. Nothing in this store is what you would call a valuable antique, so if people ask questions just sort of wing it. Say it’s a nice piece, great color, cool design, that kind of thing. You can knock ten percent off the price of anything, twenty percent if it’s over two hundred bucks. Let Sputnik out back every couple of hours. Help yourself to anything in the fridge or the cupboard. That’s it.”

I was about to head outside to wait for George when the phone rang.

“Janet’s Planet.”

“We need to talk.” It was a woman’s voice—throaty and hip, not young.

“Who is this?”

“Esmerelda Pillow. And we
do
need to talk.”

“What about?”

“The tides, longing … Daphne Livingston, the life and death of.”

“So talk, I have about a minute.”

“Tick-tock, tick-tock.” She laughed, ironic, knowing—this chick was deep. “No matter how fast we run we all end up in the same place.”

“Cute.”

“Meet me out at the lighthouse tomorrow morning at dawn.”

“Should I bring my
I Ching
?”

That laugh again, with its mocking edge. Then she hung up.

“I’m in love,” were
George’s first words as I climbed into his vintage hearse.

“That was quick. I saw you the day before yesterday.”

“That’s how true love happens, Janet, you of all people should know that. It’s just
POW!
and there you are—two people madly deeply
insanely
in love. Oh God, I’m all tingly.”

I’d known George a little under a year and this was the third time he’d fallen madly, deeply,
insanely
in love, so I took it with a grain of salt—one of those fat Kosher grains.

“Who is he?”

“His name is Dwayne. He’s an artist.”

“What kind?”

“He works in wood.”

“So he’s a carpenter?”

“Don’t be so prosaic, Janet. But, yes, he came to repair my wobbly step—and the rest is destiny.”

“Anything else I should know about him?” I asked. George had a way of leaving out salient details if they smudged his rose-colored glasses.

“No,” George said, a little too casually. “Except that’s he’s quirky, kind, soulful,
hot
…”

“And …”

“You know, Janet, you’re impossible. You just want to piss on my parade … So what if he’s married, it’s just a technicality at this point.”

“I doubt his wife feels that way.”

“I would hope his wife wants him to become who he is.”

“You mean
her
husband?”

“If he was getting what he needed at home, I don’t think he would have fallen into my arms.”

I reached over and squeezed his thigh. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

“Oh, Janet, he’s
incredible
. I’m making him dinner tonight … if he can find a babysitter.”

I just let that one sit there. I’m not into bubble bursting—they have a way of deflating on their own.

“So have you been putting in any shifts at the ER?” I asked.

“Nah. Benedictine Hospital called me last week and asked me to fill in for a few days, but the timing was wrong.”

“You don’t miss the excitement?”

“Sometimes I do. But these days three-quarters of ER visits are folks without insurance who show up with the flu or a nasty splinter. Not exactly life and death stuff,” George said. “Besides, Dwayne is all the excitement I can handle.”

I filled George in on the details of what had happened yesterday.

“What if Daphne
was
murdered, wouldn’t that be fabulous?”

“George, murder isn’t fabulous.”

“Of course it is. It’s almost like sex!”

I could always count on George to cut to the id.

The Sawyerville town hall
was one of those new buildings that’s supposed both to relate to the past and aspire to the future, and fails at both—it was a mishmash of red brick, flagstone trim, a swooping roof, and way too much glass. There was a rowdy crowd out front, lots of signs opposed to River Landing, George waved greetings to his compatriots. He loved all this—the fight, the passion, the camaraderie, and most of all the attention.

A small, hirsute male
creature
suddenly appeared and jumped up onto George, wrapping himself around his torso. With an explosion of matted hair that hadn’t been washed in a decade or so, a matching beard, filthy bare feet, and wearing a costume left over from a dinner theater production of
Oliver
, he was a cross between an organ grinder’s monkey and a midget hippie with a Messiah complex.

“Janet, this is Mad John,” George said, grinning.

“Jaaaaaa-
net
!” Mad John said with a mad smile. Not a lot of tooth action there. He planted a big wet kiss on George’s cheek and said, “I love Georgie!”

“Ready to face Vince Hammer?” George asked.

“Don’t worry about that mothafucka—he builds that city, I’ll just torch it,” Mad John said.

“I didn’t hear that,” George said.

“What are they going to do? Throw me in the loony bin?” Mad John roared, rocking back and forth, rocking George right along with him. Then he leapt down and starting jumping up and down like an ecstatic Ritalin-addled three-year-old, singing, “
Don’t worry, be crazy.”

You hadda love him.

Suddenly there was a commotion: Vince Hammer was making his arrival, climbing out of a fat silver SUV. He was tall, handsome, mid-thirties, over-groomed with shiny black hair and glowing skin, surrounded by aides and attorneys. Most of the crowd were adversaries, but Hammer’s M.O. was to kill them with charisma—he beamed, exchanged mock-folksy greetings. The guy was like margarine. I wondered why anybody ever bought this kind of bullshit—and then he caught my eye and smiled at me. Think Bill Clinton meets George Clooney.

The city council chamber was jammed, so we stood in the back. The crowd was a Hudson Valley mix of country folk, townies, suburbanites, artsy-crafties, old hippies, bright young things, and a couple of loose screws who probably thought they were there to watch a movie. Mad John crawled down the aisle and sat cross-legged on the floor up front. The five town supervisors sat at a raised table.

“Janet, this is Helen Bearse,” George said, introducing the woman standing next to us. “She’s a realtor in town.”

Helen looked to be in her mid-fifties, small, thin, toned, wearing a stylish beige dress and a fair amount of country-chic jewelry—large stones in geometric silver settings.

“This is going to be a tough one,” Helen said. “Vince Hammer has
a lot
of dough, and he’s very smooth.” She nodded toward the supervisors. “The two on the left are in Hammer’s pocket, the two on the right are on our side, the one in the middle—Beth Rogers—is going to swing this thing one way or the other.”

Beth Rogers was bespectacled, middle-aged, with shortish gray hair, an erect posture, wearing a blouse and cardigan. She was making notes on a legal pad, looking every inch a librarian—except for that racy vermilion lipstick. Hmmm.

One of the supervisors opened the meeting, explained that there was going to be a presentation by Mr. Hammer, testimony from experts, and then an open mike. He introduced Hammer, who loped to the front of the room and gave us an aw-shucks smile, his eyes twinkling with warmth and sincerity. He waited for the room to settle before be began.

“It’s a sacred responsibility, isn’t it? To protect this glorious valley that we all love,” he began in a honeyed baritone. “A responsibility to our children, and their children. I fulfill that trust by providing harmonious, organic environments for people to live in, work in, play in,
grow
in.”

“
Waah-naa!
” Mad John let loose a loud weird high-pitched sound that was part laugh, part snort, part honk—all crazy. Hammer looked down at him, rattled for a moment.

“
Yes!
” George exulted.

“I’d like to show a little movie I made that features an exact rendering of River Landing,” Hammer said. “I call it
Through the Eyes of an Eagle.
”

The lights dimmed. Two enormous monitors on either side of the room came on, a lush instrumental version of
This Land Is Your Land
swelled, and we were treated to a panoramic, eagle’s-eye view of the Hudson Valley. As the sun rose in the east over the Taconics, the valley was bathed in radiant light and the bird flew over small towns and large estates, lighthouses and bridges, before swooping down to Sawyerville, so close that you could see every building and landmark—and there, on the banks of the river, was a harmonious, organic, digitally created, amazingly lifelike rendering of River Landing. The eagle flew over walkways that wound through a sylvan landscape dotted with ponds, birches, hillocks, and breathtaking river views. Directly across the river sat Westward Farm. The bird flew out over the river in an exhilarating final shot. Fade to black.

The lights came up.

Vince Hammer stood there in righteous silence, biting his lower lip, his eyes filled with reverence. “How blessed are we?” he asked in a beatific whisper.

“
Waah-naa!
”

Vince shot Mad John another rattled glance, but quickly recovered and said, “Did you notice that magnificent estate on the east bank? That’s Westward Farm, and it’s a piece of American history, the seat of the Livingston Family. It’s land can never be developed, ensuring River Landing a spectacular view in perpetuity.”

Helen leaned into us. “Hammer has had his eyes on Westward Farm for over a decade.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He wants to buy it and live there, has made unbelievable offers to the Livingstons, but some of them refuse to sell.”

“But if he lived there he’d be looking at his own development,” I said.

“He loves that. He wants to be the King of the Hudson, he’s planning developments at four other sites up and down the river.”

Vince Hammer was just finishing up. “My door is always open, come and talk to me with any of your concerns. Let’s work together to protect this hallowed land.”

“
Waah-naa!
”

“I have a request,” George called out.

“You’ll have to wait for the open mike,” the presiding supervisor said.

George ignored him and strode down the aisle, all eyes on him. “Vince, being the good neighbor you are, would you please allow me two minutes of your time?”

Anger flashed in Hammer’s eyes, but he smiled and said, “Of course.”

George reached the front of the room. “Could we rewind the film to the place where the eagle is flying around River Landing?”

The film started up. As the bird swooped across one of the development’s ponds, George yelled: “Freeze.” He walked over to a monitor and pointed out a barely visible shadow. “Vince, my man, could you tell us what that shadow is?”

“What shadow?”

“The one with my finger on it …
duh
,” George said, rolling his eyes and getting a laugh from the crowd.

“I believe that would be the shadow of River Rhapsody,” Vince said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“And what is River Rhapsody?”

“It’s a housing unit.”

“What
kind
of housing unit?”

“Multi-family.”

“How multi?”

“I believe River Rhapsody will contain seventy-five units.”

“
Waah-naa!
”

“Okay, seventy-five units. Now if I read your prospectus right, it will have three units to a floor, making it twenty-five stories high.”

“Imagine the profound connection to the valley those lucky few living in River Rhapsody will feel,” Hammer said.

“Yeah, imagine the profound connection to an ugly condo slab everyone else will feel. Forward again, please.” The film restarted. “Freeze! … Now look over to the right.” Sure enough, there was another long shadow. “What’s
that
shadow, Vince?”

By now Vince had had enough. He did a little swagger-in-place and said with an edge of defiance in his voice, “That’s River Rhythm. It will contain the most luxurious apartments north of Manhattan.”

“
Waah-naa!
”

“
What is your problem!?
” Vince barked at Mad John.

“Mirror-mirror on the wall, who’s the greediest of them all?” Mad John chanted.

The room burst into gales of laughter, and Hammer gave George and Mad John a look that could freeze a lava flow.

From there, things grew increasingly contentious as folks who both supported and opposed River Landing took to the microphone. Vince Hammer was clearly shaken by the ferocity of his foes. Beth Rogers, on the other hand, remained inscrutable, listening with those racy lips slightly pursed, occasionally taking notes.

The board would convene in two weeks to take a final vote.

George was proud as a gay peacock as we walked outside.

“Me and Mad John nailed that creep’s ass pretty good, don’t you think?” he said.

“Who
is
Mad John?”

“He’s a river rat, lives among the reeds.”

“You were both great,” I said. “Listen, what do you make of Hammer lusting over Westward Farm?”

“He’s a pig from hell, of course he lusts over it—it’s one of the most amazing properties in the valley.”

“But do you think he could possibly be connected to Daphne’s death? Helen Bearse said that some of the family were holding out from selling—what if it was Daphne?”

George just looked at me.