Tressed to Kill (10 page)

“It wouldn’t have come to that,” Lucy said, glaring at Simone. “Constance would have listened to reason.” She pushed her glasses up her sharp nose.
Not too likely, I thought but didn’t say. Constance hadn’t shown any inclination in that direction with the salon or with Walter Highsmith’s store. Once she made up her mind, it tended to stay made up. “What will happen now?” I asked.
Both women stared at me, puzzled.
“Will the board still . . . let you go, now that . . .” Now that Constance is out of the picture? Now that Constance has kicked the bucket? Now that Constance has been conveniently murdered? I didn’t know how to end the sentence with Simone sitting there, and so I let it fade.
Lucy shook her head. “No, the acting chairman talked to me yesterday and begged me to stay on. He said he didn’t know what they’d do without me, that no other historian in the country has my expertise or knowledge of the Rothmere collection.” She fell silent, basking in the glow of remembered praise.
“Quite a stroke of luck for you, then,” Simone said nastily. “My mother getting murdered.”
Lucy gasped and fluttered a hand to her cheek.
“I’m sure others benefited even more,” I put in, hoping to draw Simone’s fire from the hapless Lucy. “I mean, surely your mother was generous with her bequests?” Okay, it didn’t qualify as subtle, but it was the best I could do.
“She was,” Simone surprised me by saying. A wry smile twisted her face. “She left a boatload of special remembrances, nickel-and-diming the estate to death. Fifty thousand for the maid who worked for her since 1980, Dad’s Rolex and his cufflink collection to Cousin Beau, her sapphire set to Susan, a significant amount in trust for the Rothmere Foundation and more to some of her other charities, a painting for this friend, a piece of furniture for that friend, the old bank building to Althea Jenkins for some bizarre—” She glared at me, as if it were my fault. “What’s it to you anyway?”
“Just curious.” I shrugged. So it was true. Constance left Althea the property on Magnolia Street.
“Well, it’s a pain in the ass,” Simone said. “As her executrix, it’ll take me weeks to sort through all the bequests and get them handed over. And just when I need the time to plan my wedding.” She looked marginally happier at the thought of cake tastings, floral arrangements, and the opportunity to make her friends wear yards of pastel tulle, or so I assumed.
“Why didn’t she appoint Philip?” I asked.
“Because she was mad at—” She cut herself off. “It’s none of your business!”
“Maybe we should get started?” Lucy suggested timorously. “I do have to inventory a crate of artifacts that arrived today for the exhibition.”
Simone took charge after that, divvying up tasks with an efficiency I envied. I drew the job of interviewing business owners to get their take on what a Morestuf would do to the town. Thirty minutes later we had come up with a plan and agreed to meet again in a couple of days, giving us time to conduct our interviews and review the data. Lucy suggested we have the next meeting at the Rothmere mansion, and Simone and I agreed. We left the conference room together and trooped silently to the front doors. A red BMW convertible idled out front, and Greg Hutchinson waved as Simone came through the door. She beamed and hurried to the car without so much as a good-bye to me and Lucy. As soon as she got in, the car shot off.
“Need a ride home, Grace?” Lucy asked, gesturing to an old station wagon.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m going to stop by my mom’s.”
“It’s awful about her being a suspect,” Lucy said. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “In Constance’s murder, I mean. Not that she did it. And not that Constance DuBois wasn’t . . . well, I mean, she could be a real bitch sometimes.”
Hearing the word “bitch” from the usually genteel Lucy surprised me so much I didn’t protest on my mom’s behalf. “I guess she had a way of annoying people.”
We descended the shallow stairs and strolled toward Lucy’s car. It was parked on Jackson Street on the east side of Bedford Square. The downtown square doesn’t get much business in the evening—most of the nightlife is on the boardwalk—but we passed a couple walking a golden retriever and two girls roller skating hand-in-hand. The sounds of a distant lawn mower and birds twittering eased away some of the day’s tension.
“She was selfish, through and through,” Lucy said. “And even though she did a lot to raise funds for the Rothmere, it wasn’t because she truly appreciated the mansion’s significance or cared about the family. She just liked throwing fund-raising balls and getting her photo in the society section of
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
sometimes. She didn’t even try to get to know the Rothmeres. Why, did you know that Amelia Rothmere was an early advocate of voting rights for women? Or that Jeremy Rothmere, Reginald’s youngest brother, conducted experiments with lights and mirrors that helped lead to the creation of the laser?”
Her voice throbbed with wonder, and she sounded like she was talking about her parents and siblings. “I’m sure they were fascinating,” I said, halfway meaning it.
“Are,” she insisted. “They
are
fascinating.”
“I probably don’t know as much about them as I should, considering they’re part of St. Elizabeth’s history.”
A smile lit her face, transforming her from plain spinster to someone far more attractive. I wondered why she’d never married. Maybe because she couldn’t find a man to measure up to Reginald or Jeremy, I thought. We stopped by her car and a squirrel scampered up the live oak overhanging it, scolding as he went.
“I’d be happy to give you a private tour anytime, Grace. And we could always use more docents for the museum.” She took one of my hands between both of hers and peered earnestly into my eyes. “You have the aura of a nineteenth-century Southern woman—hard-working but gracious.”
“Thank you.” I think. I didn’t see myself dressing up in period garb—those skirts and petticoats were hot. Hot as in suffocate from heat, not hot as in hottie. And shepherding flocks of bored school kids through the museum, explaining about funerary hair art and ice houses didn’t light my fire, either. “I don’t think I’m docent material, but I’ll stop by sometime to go through the house.”
“Why don’t you come a little early on Wednesday, before the committee meeting, and I’ll show you around,” Lucy suggested. “You’ll be amazed at the changes.”
I agreed. “I don’t think I’ve been there since I was nine or ten.” I smiled at her, enjoying her enthusiasm. “You really love the place, don’t you?”
“It’s my life.”

Chapter Ten

MOM WASN’T HOME WHEN I STOPPED BY, AND I FIGURED she might be out with Althea, hopefully learning more about the surprise inheritance. I stopped to study the old bank building as I passed. It had a Greek look to it with a peaked roofline and lots of marble. Faint etching on a foundation stone said “Est. 1832.” Despite the remodeling and the discreetly lettered sign announcing “Confederate Artefacts, Walter Highsmith, Prop.,” you could see it had once been a bank. Of course, the words “DuBois Deposit Trust Company” engraved in the marble slab that topped four columns sort of gave it away. Even without the engraving, something about the double glass doors and the severity of the façade said “bank” to me. A granite hitching post out front testified to the days when plantation owners or carpetbaggers arrived on horseback to make their deposits.
I kept going, remembering that Walter had wanted to take Mom to dinner; maybe that’s where she was. Mrs. Jones rocked on her porch as I came up the walk, a man seated in the chair beside her. He was probably one of her great-nephews. I waved and picked up my pace, hoping to make it to my apartment before she forced an introduction.
“Grace,” she called. “This young man is here to talk to you.”
Great. I retraced my steps. The man had risen at my approach, unfolding a gangly frame that probably topped six feet by at least five inches. He was about my age, thirtyish, with sandy hair brushing his collar and an engaging smile. He wore tan slacks and a white shirt with a polka-dotted bow tie. He looked like he’d stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting, except his gaze was a bit too sharp and his hair too long to fit in with Rockwell’s characters.
“Martin Shears,” he introduced himself, coming down two steps from the veranda to grip my hand. “
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
. Call me Marty.”
“You’re a reporter? From Atlanta?”
He nodded. “Yep. The political beat.”
That confused me even more. “And you want to talk to me?”
“He’s been waiting for forty-five minutes,” Mrs. Jones confirmed. “He’s a most charming young man.” She winked at me behind Shears’s back. “And he does like his lemonade.” She nodded at the almost empty pitcher on the table between the rocking chairs.
“But I could use a beer now,” Shears said. “Can I buy you one?”
“Uh, I guess so,” I said, at a complete loss. Still, he didn’t act like an ax murderer, and I didn’t have any other plans for the evening.
He thanked Genevieve Jones for the lemonade and the pleasure of her company, making her blush and say, “Oh, go on with you!” Then he escorted me down the walkway to a yellow and white MINI Cooper. I didn’t think he’d fit in such a small car, but he held the door for me and then slid easily into the driver’s seat.
“It’s your turf,” he said. “Where shall we go?”
I resisted the urge to name The Crab Trap, foregoing the opportunity to spy on my mother’s date, and gave him directions to The Pirate.
“Let’s sit outside,” Marty suggested when we had our beers. We claimed a table on the patio. Only one other couple sat at the far end of it. I began to relax under the influence of the beer, the gentle evening air, and the lap-pings of the ocean.
“So,” I asked after a quiet interval, “what brings a big-city reporter to sleepy little St. Elizabeth?”
“What takes a reporter anywhere? The story.” He sipped his beer and looked at me over the rim of his mug. His eyes were a light brown, fringed with sandy lashes under darker brows. The right brow had a thin white line of scar bisecting it near his nose.
I could think of only one big story in St. Elizabeth, but I couldn’t imagine why it would interest an Atlanta reporter. “Constance DuBois’s murder?”
“Close. I think her murder may tie in.”
“To what?”
“To a story I’m working on about the governor.”
“She was his cousin-in-law—hardly exciting news for your readers. I lived in Atlanta for going on four years and I know a murder doesn’t make the paper unless it’s a celebrity or a child or someone killed in a particularly inventive and gruesome way.”
He gave me a half smile. “Touché. However, political corruption is news, especially when it may go as high as the governor. Isn’t there a plan to build a Morestuf in St. Elizabeth? My investigation suggests that Governor Lansky is taking kickbacks to smooth the way for certain developers and that he’s been doing it for years. Ever heard of Sea Mist Plantation?”
A chill that had nothing to do with the cooling air wiggled up my spine. “Of course. I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Let’s go take a look at it,” he said, tossing money on the table to pay for the beers. “And I’ll tell you my story.”
I chugged half of my beer and stood. As we walked back to the MINI Cooper, I asked, “Does your story start with ‘once upon a time’?”
“Sure,” he agreed, holding the car door for me. “Once upon a time there was a big, bad wolf. And he wangled a position on the city council and the zoning commission of a small kingdom . . .”
By the time we reached Sea Mist Plantation, about ten minutes south of St. Elizabeth proper, Marty Shears had filled me in on his investigation, in which Beau Lansky played a key role in enabling developers to build on wetlands and trample ecologically sensitive areas, all for hefty bribes, sometimes disguised as donations to his campaigns or as scholarships for his children. “Sea Mist Plantation was one of his early forays into corruption, I think, and one of the most controversial because it destroyed thousands of acres of wetlands.”
We were walking around Sea Mist’s town center, a collection of very high-end boutiques and pricy eateries that ringed a large, man-made lake populated by geese and other water fowl. A gator or two probably lurked below the surface, but maybe the homeowners’ association dues funded gator removal. I found it hard to be too offended at the fate of Sea Mist’s wetlands. The whole town of St. Elizabeth was soggy, with expanses of marsh in almost every view and fingers of water—streams, bayous, cricks—poking into housing divisions and flooding roads every time it rained. I kept my views to myself, though, knowing “wetlands” was a sacred word to the eco-conscious.
“Would he have been in a position to
stop
a particular group of developers from using the property?” I asked instead, thinking of Althea’s story.
“Definitely,” Marty said, steering me out of the way of three bicyclers. “Why?”
I debated sharing Althea’s story with him as we turned down a side street where McMansions dominated lushly landscaped yards. I caught glimpses of the golf course between the houses, its fairways dotted with serene ponds and overhung with cypress trees, magnolias, and live oaks. Even this late in the evening, a foursome putted on a green in the distance.
Given Althea’s sensitivity, I decided to tell her about Marty’s investigation and let her choose if she wanted to clue him in about her husband William and Carl Rowan. “Why did you want to talk to me?” I asked instead, watching a Canada goose nibble at the grass in a nearby yard.
“I’ve been in town a couple of days, asking questions about the Morestuf development plan, and your name came up. People tell me you’ve been asking questions about Constance DuBois’s death and Del Richardson from Morestuf.”
“Word gets around,” I said, kicking a pinecone off the sidewalk.
We stopped walking, and Marty propped his shoulders against a brick-encased mailbox at the end of a winding driveway. I faced him, appreciating the breeze that kicked up the scents of cypress and chlorinated water from a backyard pool.
“So what have you discovered?” Marty asked.
I stayed silent, wondering whether to trust him. On the one hand, he might know something that would help the police arrest Constance’s murderer and clear my mom. On the other hand, I didn’t know him from Adam; in fact, how did I even know he was a reporter?
As if he guessed my suspicions from my silence, Marty said easily, “I’m legit, you know.” He handed me a business card.
I waved it dismissively. “I could have one of these printed at any office supply store.”
A flapping sound heralded the arrival of three more geese, and they landed on the lawn with a flurry of honking and jostling for territory.
Marty grinned, not at all put out by my lack of trust. “True. Look, this story’s not going to come together overnight. Go home, look me up on Google or call the city desk, and then decide if you want to talk some more. We might be able to help each other. You know the area, but I know Lansky’s history and the way he operates. Don’t let the glad-handing and the Pepsodent smile fool you—he’s a ruthless bastard.”
“Do you think he could have killed Constance?” The thought popped out before I could stop it.
Marty shook his head, but he didn’t look at me like I’d lost my mind for suggesting it. “He couldn’t have pulled the trigger himself, he—”
“She was stabbed.”
“Regardless. He was at a fund-raiser Wednesday night, in full view of dozens of the state’s richest Democrats.”
“Oh.” I was disappointed, but a moment’s thought told me it was beyond ludicrous to hope to clear my mom by pinning the murder on the governor. “And I guess there’s really no reason for him to want her dead.” I eyed the geese that had wandered closer to us in their search for grubs, or whatever geese eat. One lowered its head on its snaky neck and hissed. I scooted back a step.
“I don’t know that I’d say that,” Marty said deliberately. “The DuBoises have supported Lansky from the start. I think he even dated Constance before she married Philip and he got together with Anne, Constance’s cousin. They’ve poured a fortune into his campaigns over the years, and I’m sure they’ve gotten a good return on their money. It’s possible Constance knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak, and threatened Lansky in some way.”
“You mean blackmail?” That didn’t sound like Constance.
“Or an attack of conscience? Maybe she was going to spill the beans about their dealings? Who knows?” Marty shrugged.
That didn’t sound much like Constance, either. But how well did I know the woman, after all? It was getting dark. I turned back toward the Sea Mist town center, and Marty fell into step beside me, taking one loping stride to my two. A golf cart puttered across the road in front of us, and the passenger lifted an iron in greeting.
“Friendly town,” Marty observed.
“It’s home.”
“But you said you used to live in Atlanta.”
“For almost four years.” I found myself giving him an abridged version of my life in Atlanta, focusing more on my work at Vidal Sassoon than on my disintegrating marriage.
“So after the divorce, you flew back to the nest,” he said. “Do you think you’ll stay?”
“Not quite.” I bristled at his comment. “I’ve got my own apartment. As to staying . . .” I hadn’t really given it any thought. I’d assumed that I would stick around and I told him as much.
We had reached the MINI Cooper, and he opened my door. I slid onto the seat. “There are worse places to live, I guess,” he said, looking down into my face with a curiously intent gaze. “But don’t you miss the excitement of the city?”
I smiled ruefully. “Nope. I guess I’m just not an exciting kind of girl.” Or so I’d been told by a college boyfriend.
A smile crept across Marty’s face. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” And he closed the door on my surprised look.