Murder of a Hermit, page 11
‘You really must not have been at her house,’ Miranda continued to Paul, ‘because it isn’t one that you would easily forget. It’s absolutely stunning! I can only imagine what Gina paid for it. She must have a good deal of money in the bank.’
Summer gave a little cough.
Hope understood its meaning. Summer was convinced that Madam Gina had made her wealth by swindling the bereaved with her supposed séances.
Miranda misinterpreted the cough and turned to Summer excitedly. ‘Have you seen her house, too? It’s spectacular, isn’t it? All glass and stone. Everything so new and modern and bright and polished.’ She heaved a wistful sigh. ‘I wish that Paul and I could have a place that nice.’
It was Paul’s turn to cough, except his was noticeably cross. ‘More than a few people in this world would eagerly leave their homeland and give up every last one of their possessions for the opportunity to live in this splendid city in our splendid brownstone.’
‘Oh, I know. I know,’ Miranda responded quickly. ‘We’re extremely lucky. Of course I realize that. But Gina’s house – on the edge of that magnificent mountain, overlooking that gorgeous valley – is something else entirely.’ There was another wistful sigh. ‘And she has no trouble with any of it, because none of it is old or broken. Her pipes don’t clank and drip. Her heating and cooling aren’t temperamental with every change of the season. Her cellar doesn’t flood; she probably doesn’t have a cellar at all! I’m quite sure,’ Miranda added somewhat dryly, ‘that electricity is currently running through Gina’s lines, and the contents of her freezer aren’t in any danger of spoiling.’
‘I predict,’ Paul said, ‘that our power will come back on shortly, as will Hope and Summer’s. And the contents of everybody’s freezer will be fine as long as you don’t keep opening the door to check on them.’ There was now a weariness in his tone, as though it wasn’t the first time that his wife had complained about their home’s ostensible deficiencies. ‘While we’re on the subject of a home constructed of all glass and stone, can you imagine what the annual fuel costs for a place like that must be? We would probably need to earn double what we presently do to afford the utility bills alone.’
‘That may be true, but at the same time,’ Miranda countered, ‘we wouldn’t have to pay such outrageous sums for contractors, generators or construction crews.’
In an effort to broker a truce, Dylan offered a compliment to both sides. ‘A modern megalith certainly has its visual and architectural appeal. Personally, I prefer an older house with history and character.’
‘Percy and I are partial to Hope and Summer’s brownstone, too,’ Rosemarie agreed with him. ‘Gina herself wanted a tour of it after I told her about the beautiful interior, and all the marvelous antique furniture and paintings, and the wonderful globe and old books that are in the—’
‘And what was her verdict?’ Dylan interrupted, smiling. ‘Did their brownstone meet with Madam Gina’s approval?’
Hope gave him a sharp – and slightly surprised – look. Dylan had apparently taken note of how Rosemarie had introduced Gina to them.
‘Unfortunately,’ Rosemarie answered, ‘there was no chance for a tour with the tea going on. Hope couldn’t leave the boutique and go into the rest of the house while so many guests were in the shop.’
‘Speaking of leaving,’ Hope said, ‘I’m not sure when exactly Gina departed from the tea. Do you happen to remember, Rosemarie?’
Rosemarie was thoughtful. ‘I’m not sure, either. Perhaps it was when the power went out?’
‘No, it was definitely before then—’
Miranda broke in, ‘Gina was at the boutique today?’
‘Yes,’ Rosemarie started to reply. ‘I invited her to join me for—’
It was Nate’s turn to interject as he lifted his gaze from his notepad to Miranda. ‘Does it surprise you that Gina was at the sisters’ brownstone?’
There was a pause as Miranda considered the question.
‘No,’ she responded after a moment. ‘I’m not surprised about Gina. I was surprised about Carter. I didn’t understand before – I think I even said that to you – why he would come here. But it makes more sense now that I know Gina was here, too.’
Hope and Summer looked at each other, and they both listened with increased interest.
Nate also showed interest in Miranda’s remark. ‘How does it make more sense?’ he asked her.
‘Well, it’s not a great secret or anything terribly scandalous, but…’ Miranda hesitated, then she glanced around and lowered her voice as though it was a secret, after all. ‘Carter was always running after Gina.’
‘Running after her?’ Nate said. ‘In what way?’
‘The usual way, I suppose.’
‘Romantically, you mean?’
Miranda nodded. ‘From what I heard, Carter was constantly calling Gina and skulking around her house at odd hours.’
Hope and Summer looked at each other again. Carter had been skulking around their house, too – not to mention breaking into their cellar – but in their case, there hadn’t been any indication of a romantic element.
‘You shouldn’t gossip, Miranda,’ Paul objected. ‘Isn’t right to speak ill of’ – he gestured awkwardly in the direction of Carter – ‘the deceased.’
‘I’m not gossiping or speaking ill of him,’ Miranda rejoined. ‘I’m merely answering a few informational questions.’ She turned back to Nate. ‘I can’t confirm whether or not there was ever an actual relationship between the two, but it really isn’t shocking that Carter would be attracted to Gina. She has that phenomenal house, plus plenty of money to go with it, presumably. And she’s obviously a very attractive woman.’
Nate inclined his head. In his defense, it wasn’t clear whether he was assenting to Miranda’s comments generally or to the specific observation regarding Gina’s beauty, but Summer made no allowances in either event. She promptly glowered at him.
‘Summer…’ Nate began, in an effort to exculpate himself.
But there was little that he could say that would be appropriate under the circumstances, considering that he was a police detective on official duty with both a dead body and a mixed audience in front of him. In the end, it was Rosemarie who – more or less – came to Nate’s rescue by changing the subject.
‘Percy and I predict,’ Rosemarie said, as both she and the pug looked up at the dismal sky, ‘that there won’t be any more rain or drizzle today, and by tomorrow, all the clouds will have cleared away from the city.’
TWELVE
It was too early to judge the accuracy of Rosemarie and Percy’s weather forecast, but Paul’s prediction as to the electricity soon proved to be wrong. The power did not come back on shortly. The windows in both brownstones remained dark, and they became even darker as the afternoon slipped into evening and the daylight began to fade with it.
The group on the side lawn gradually dispersed, some more willingly than others. Miranda grew increasingly worried about the contents of her freezer, and she and Paul returned home to monitor the condition of their melting perishables, vigorously debating along the way the efficacy of packing the items into coolers filled with ice. Rosemarie departed with Percy – who was growing cranky for his overdue dinner – saying that she would drop by the boutique tomorrow for an update. Austin lingered the longest, resuming his complaints to Nate about Hope and Summer until a large contingent of police and related officials arrived and started to block off the area, effectively throwing him out of it. At last, only Dylan remained at the pool. He and Nate and several of Nate’s colleagues huddled over Carter, discussing the findings from Dylan’s examination of the body.
With slow steps, Hope and Summer headed back to the boutique. Having departed during the tail end of the tea, they expected to enter a gloomy and disordered shop, but to their surprise, they found it spick and span and cheerfully illuminated by half a dozen candles. The dirty cups and saucers had been loaded into the dishwasher in anticipation of the eventual return of the electricity. The teapots had been rinsed and stacked on the counter to dry. And all of the leftovers from the snack platters had been neatly wrapped and set aside, although not in the refrigerator, because Megan had demonstrated more restraint than Miranda and didn’t open the doors while the power was off.
Unhappily, the power was going to stay off. Between her industrious cleaning and organizational activities, Megan had contacted the electric company. Either she’d had the good fortune to reach someone in the customer service department who was especially helpful, or she had used her indomitable hotel charm and cajolery to successful effect, because unlike Miranda, Megan had come away with significant useful information.
The electricity was not expected to be restored until the following day at the earliest. The current estimate was in the neighborhood of noon, but that was only a rough guess, because none of the repair crews had as of yet managed to pinpoint the exact source of the trouble. There was some thought that it might be a worn-out transformer, or it could involve a malfunctioning toggle switch on one of the branch lines. In any case, the outage was not an isolated incident. Some of the other houses on Hope and Summer’s block were also experiencing problems, as were some of the other blocks in the city. To the sisters’ relief, there appeared to be no direct connection to the retention pool or what had happened to Carter. While it wasn’t good news for Miranda and her freezer, Rosemarie would certainly be elated when she learned of it. Now Percy could no longer be blamed – at least not to such a degree – for having chewed on the extension cord the day before.
Megan’s next call in Hope and Summer’s absence had been to their grandmother to find out if she and Morris Henshaw still had power. Although Olivia Bailey’s driver’s license listed the brownstone as her legal address with her granddaughters, and the post office continued to deliver her mail there, she spent an increasing number of days and nights at Morris’s house. From Morris’s viewpoint, it was a substantial victory. He had been sweet on Olivia for as long as Hope and Summer could remember, and he had never made any secret of the fact that his ultimate goal was to marry her. For her part, Olivia was less transparent as to her wishes for the future.
With regard to the electricity, Olivia had told Megan that she and Morris hadn’t experienced any sort of an outage, and then she had immediately invited them all to come over for the night. Morris had apparently been so enthusiastic about the idea that he had started shouting out food and drink options in the background. In addition to his estimable skills as a physician, Morris was an avid cook and never missed the opportunity to show off his culinary talents. Megan had taken the liberty of agreeing to the visit on the sisters’ behalf and, aside from throwing a few necessities into an overnight bag, snuffing the candles, and locking the front door, everything was arranged for the trio to depart the brownstone.
Although Hope and Summer were grateful to Megan for accomplishing so much while they had been outside, they also remembered Dylan’s admonishment with regard to her resting. During all of Megan’s assiduous tidying and telephoning, there didn’t appear to have been much of an opportunity for her to sit quietly with her cast elevated or lie down. In response to their concerns, Megan merely shrugged and said that she would take it easy at Olivia and Morris’s. Dylan’s medical advice to her had evidently had the opposite effect of that which he had intended. Once reassured that the numbness in her leg was a result of too much strain and overactivity rather than sepsis, nerve damage, or impending paralysis, Megan had promptly gone about her business without another thought to her injury. She had never been good at slowing down or sitting still, and the concept of resting and a lazy day – unless it involved a chilled cocktail and a sandy beach – wasn’t in her vocabulary.
There was no use in chastising Megan after the fact, so Hope simply thanked her for all of her efforts and quietly crossed her fingers that Morris and Gram would be more successful at keeping Megan stationary and off her feet than she and Summer had been. Hope knew that at a minimum Megan would be prohibited from hobbling around Morris’s kitchen, because Morris was rather possessive of his kitchen, particularly when playing host. But when they finally reached the house, it turned out that Megan wasn’t allowed to hobble through any of the rooms – and neither, for that matter, were the sisters. The moment their car pulled into the driveway, Morris hurried outside to greet them, and then just as quickly, he started to herd them toward the back garden.
‘Hullo, hullo!’ he cried. ‘So glad that you’ve arrived safe and sound. Olivia and I were beginning to worry about the delay. We didn’t know what might be holding you up. But there’s no time to talk about that now. We mustn’t dawdle! Leave your bags in the car for later. The cornbread is almost done.’
It was more zeal than Morris usually exhibited. He was an earnest, contemplative man with a generous heart and a warm laugh, but he tended toward the somber, and the laugh didn’t make an especially frequent appearance.
‘How is the leg doing?’ he asked Megan, immediately growing anxious at the sight of her cast. ‘Dylan has checked on it, hasn’t he? He assured me that he would.’
‘Yes. Twice over the last two days. And all is well,’ Megan told him.
‘Good. That’s excellent news.’ Morris watched her move with considerable proficiency on her crutches, and his worried expression relaxed somewhat. ‘Good,’ he repeated, directing them up the elegant flagstone path that led to the rear of the house. ‘You can’t be too careful with fractures and sprains. They have a sneaky way of causing trouble down the road if you don’t take proper care of them early on. Heed the experience of your wizened elders: you have to look after your health, so that it can look after you.’
‘While we’re on the subject of health,’ Hope said, ‘Megan has been exerting herself far more than she should today—’
‘And now she needs to sit down for a long rest,’ Summer chimed in.
‘Tattletales,’ Megan grumbled.
‘Instead of complaining, you should be thanking us for our concern,’ Summer rejoined. ‘If you don’t rest, your leg won’t heal. If your leg doesn’t heal, you won’t get out of that cast. And if you don’t get out of that cast, how will you be able to go on your next splashy dinner date with Daniel Drexler?’
Megan laughed. ‘Touché.’
‘You’ll get plenty of rest here,’ Morris promised her. ‘Olivia has the guest rooms ready, and we have the patio all set up, too. There is a lounger for you to properly elevate your leg, and extra cushions to reduce the pressure on the cast, and…’
As he continued to enumerate the careful arrangements that had been made for Megan on the patio that evening, Hope noticed that Morris was hobbling a bit himself.
‘Are you feeling all right, Morris?’ she interjected. ‘Has your back started to cause you more problems?’
‘It’s stiff,’ he answered. ‘But it’s always stiff. And I don’t like to grouse about it, because on the whole, the surgery was a greater success for me than it is for many other people. My range of motion has improved, and I have much less pain than I used to. Summer’s teas have been extremely helpful, as well.’
‘Any time that you need a fresh batch,’ Summer said, ‘just let me know.’
‘I appreciate the offer. I’ll certainly take you up on it when—’
Summer made a sniffing noise. ‘I hate to interrupt you, Morris, but if you have anything cooking, I think that it might be getting a tad charred.’
‘Do you smell something burning? It must be the cornbread!’ Morris shouted in dismay. And with as much speed as his stiff back and hobbling gait allowed, he hastened around the corner of the house.
They followed after him slowly, letting Megan and her crutches set the pace. A minute later, they also turned the corner and promptly gave a collective exclamation of delight. The flagstone path had broadened to a spacious, beautifully appointed flagstone patio. It was bordered on opposite sides by two arching, burnished arbors decorated with intricate scrolling ironwork. The arbors were strung with numerous strands of glittering silver lights. In the center of the patio was a red brick firepit that flamed orange and gold. It was surrounded by an array of large, comfortable furniture, including the promised lounger with the extra cushions for Megan. A matching brick oven stood at the far end of the space, adjoined by a multi-tiered food preparation table and a stainless-steel wet bar.
‘It’s fabulous,’ Megan said. ‘Completely fabulous. With a convivial beverage in my hand, I could rest here for days without moving a muscle.’ She added after a moment, ‘It might be because I haven’t seen the patio for a while, but I don’t remember it being quite so fancy and luxurious.’
Hope nodded. ‘The arbors are new to me, too. Morris and Gram keep renovating and updating.’
‘I think,’ Summer remarked in a low tone, ‘that Morris is encouraging the continual makeovers as another way to tie Gram to the house.’
‘Tsk-tsk. It isn’t polite to whisper about your grandmother, my dears.’
They jumped in surprise. Olivia had come up behind them noiselessly and unseen in the impending dusk.
‘Hi, Gram.’
‘Hello, my dears. I’m so happy that you’re here, as always.’
A bevy of kisses and hugs followed.
There was a clattering noise from Morris as he removed a round earthenware dish from the brick oven and deposited it heavily on the adjoining table.
