Regrets Only

by Nancy Geary

  7:04 p.m.

  Archer drove in silence. Lucy stared out the window. This far west of the city the homes were more spread out. Each expansive residence of Pennsylvania fieldstone seemed to command several acres of lush fields. In some areas the grass was deep emerald, in others it was lighter and mixed with patches of brown; the effect was a quilt of varying tones. She rolled down her window to inhale the fresh air and slight smell of hay. In the distance a chestnut horse grazed.

  They crossed a small stone bridge, and Lucy glanced down at the rocky stream and the elegant sycamore trees growing along the wet banks. Then Archer turned onto a winding road. The car seemed to stall, then lurched forward as they climbed the hill. On their left, open meadows gently sloped away from the road to a pond surrounded by tall grasses. On the right stretched a black spiked fence behind which grew tall beech and birch trees. When they came to two stone pillars in which SUMMER HOUSE was carved, he stopped the car, reached into the glove compartment, and pulled out a small box. As he pressed the center button, the ornate iron gate slowly opened, creaking along its metal trench. He shifted into second gear and pulled forward.

  Lucy glanced down the long driveway framed by rows of apple trees to the building beyond: a sprawling stone structure with an expansive slate courtyard in front. “What is this place?” she asked. “A museum?”

  Archer shook his head.

  “This is your home?” She’d seen houses as grand before but somehow never thought that real lives took place behind the walls, let alone the life of the man with whom she was involved.

  “I actually live over there,” Archer replied, pointing in the direction of a smaller stone building with dark shutters, a covered entry portico, and a small veranda off one side. Pristine white mortar joints accentuated the stonework, and a row of low, trimmed boxwoods created a path to the entrance.

  Rather than turning in the direction he’d indicated, though, he continued to drive toward the massive building Lucy had noticed first. Pointing to a row of windows just under the roofline, Archer explained, “That’s where I was exiled when I was younger, or should I say when I was a troublemaker. Now I’m in the guesthouse—what Father refers to as the garden service shed. I’m not sure whether that means he thinks I’ve improved or that I’m simply incorrigible.” He shrugged.

  “Can I see it?”

  “Later.” He winked. “We’re already eight minutes late.”

  As they pulled up to the turnaround, she saw Rodman Haverill standing out front. Well over six feet, he’d clad his thin frame in a blue-striped oxford shirt and bow tie, a navy blazer, and gray flannels. His tasseled mahogany loafers shone from polish. He pushed up his sleeve and glanced at his watch to send a very obvious message, and she heard a slightly exasperated sigh escape Archer’s lips before he shifted into neutral and cut the ignition.

  “Hello, Archer.” He nodded to his son and extended a hand toward her. “Miss O’Malley, I presume.”

  “Yes. Lucy. Call me Lucy. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” she lied.

  “I wish I could say the same.” His deep voice had either a trace of vibrato or a slight tremor. Several dark hairs protruded from his prominent nose, and his bushy eyebrows overshadowed wire-rimmed glasses. “I don’t monitor my son’s comings and goings, and he keeps his private life to himself. Then he makes a general pronouncement about his relationships and that’s that.”

  “I’ll try to differentiate myself from the mob,” she replied, stepping past him into the impressive two-story entrance.

  A chandelier hung down through the double staircase. An enormous Oriental rug covered most of the marble floor, and a rectangular mirror in a carved black frame dominated one wall. Aside from two Chippendale side chairs, the space was empty.

  “Your home is very beautiful.” She could hear an echo.

  “Thank you. It belonged to my mother’s family. When Archer’s mother and I married, my parents gave it to us, as I will give it to Archer and his bride when—”

  He paused to clear his throat, but Lucy didn’t wait for him to finish the phrase she dreaded hearing—when he marries. Her mother would make precisely the same kind of awkward comment. “It looks very English,” she said to change the subject. “I went to the Cotswolds once and it reminds me of there. Only the houses were smaller.” She laughed.

  “It was designed by the firm of Mellor and Meigs,” he replied, apparently ignoring her attempt at humor. “Walter Mellor and Arthur Meigs were considered instrumental in bringing the English pastoral mode seen throughout the Cotswolds to American residences. So you’re right. You have either wonderful intuition or a better knowledge of architecture than I would have presumed for a . . . police officer.” He patted Archer on the back.

  “Cops will surprise you with what they know,” she said.

  He gave her a look—furrowed eyebrows and a slight pucker in the mouth—that she couldn’t read. Then, apparently dismissing her last remark, he continued, “I would offer to show you around but I wish to avoid the wrath of my son so early in the evening. He tells me I’m prone to driving people away by boring them. So I suggest a drink out on the terrace. It’s a mild evening and you might enjoy seeing the gardens, although they are certainly not what they’ll be in a month or two.”

  He opened a large door and led them into a comfortable sitting room filled with overstuffed burgundy furniture corded in sage green. The floor-length drapes opened smoothly as he pulled the rings along a dark wooden rod, revealing the slate terrace that ran nearly the whole length of the house. They stepped outside. On an iron table was a tray with crystal decanters, a silver wine cooler with a corked bottle protruding from it, several glasses, and a plate of peeled carrot sticks.

  Archer offered to make drinks while Mr. Haverill began what must have been his standard speech for newcomers about the grounds, the landscape design, the various renovations that had transpired over the years since the house was built. Listening, Lucy wondered how many prior girlfriends had heard this spiel. She imagined the lineup of women with bangs and matching sweater sets, daughters of matrons who prided themselves on membership in the Colonial Dames, and volunteers at Pennsylvania Hospital. Her predecessors probably knew the rules of polo and the ingredients in a Pimms Cup.

  “The house was a constant canvas to my grandmother,” Archer interrupted, offering Lucy a glass of Sancerre. As she took it, he mouthed the words, “If the pace doesn’t quicken, there’s more where that came from.”

  “Archer’s quite correct. My mother, Emma, had so hoped that my wife would love this home, too. But as I expect Archer has told you, that didn’t come to pass.” The reference to Morgan seemed to change his manner of speech. His voice softened, and the tremor disappeared.

  “Dad’s mother was a perfectionist and she insisted on certain details: that the privet be kept at seventy-five inches, that the birdbaths be cleaned the first Monday of the month, that all the varieties of roses be replaced with Jackson and Perkins’s ‘John F. Kennedy’ after the President’s assassination,” Archer volunteered. “God help the gardener who didn’t follow her instructions.”

  Mr. Haverill chuckled at his son’s remark, swirled the gin in his glass, and then took a sip. The ice cubes rattled. “A little light on tonic,” he said, handing his tumbler back to Archer.

  For a moment the only sound was the quick fizz of carbonation as Archer opened another bottle of Schweppes. Mr. Haverill walked to the table and picked up a carrot stick along with his newly diluted drink. “In addition to being the lone Democrat in a Republican bastion, my mother was a painter. She spent hours in this garden with her easel even after her doctors told her to stop. Many hours on her feet exhausted her.”

  “What did she paint?” Lucy asked.

  “Mostly still lifes, a few portraits. She was an artist along the lines of the Boston School—realism with an enhanced natural beauty. ‘The world is ugly enough,’ she used to say, quoting Renoir. You might enjoy seeing
some of her work after dinner, although one of her best oils will fill your view from the dining room table.”

  “That sounds lovely.”

  “She absolutely was,” he replied, apparently mishearing. “The loveliest lady in all of Philadelphia. You can’t begin to know how many people shared that view. Her shoes were too hard to fill for the next Mrs. Haverill.”

  Just then a petite woman in a black uniform with a white apron appeared from behind the interior curtain to announce that dinner was served. Mr. Haverill led the way to the dining room—a rectangular space with an inlaid wood floor, a large fireplace with a marble surround and mantel, and a long mahogany table. He held Lucy’s chair, then took his place at one end while Archer sat at the other.

  As Lucy pulled herself slightly closer to her place setting, she wondered how to address the problem of having dinner companions at opposite ends of a ten-foot table. To speak to Mr. Haverill, who still hadn’t told her to call him Rodman, she would have to turn away from Archer and vice versa. Or she could look at neither and stare instead at Emma Haverill’s beautiful oil: a composition of hydrangeas in a cobalt pitcher beside a bowl of fruit and an apple cut in half on the brightly colored tablecloth. She’d obviously set a high standard of perfection.

  The Haverills’ maid came around to her left side with a white casserole dish filled with a light brown puree. “Celery root?” she offered, wedging the hot dish even closer. Lucy negotiated the serving with more ease than she would have imagined given that she had to twist her spine to avoid being burned and raise her left elbow to get a half-decent angle. The process was repeated for string beans, brussels sprouts, and roast pork. When her plate was full she felt a moment of triumph. Not a drop of grease, sauce, or anything else spoiled the white lace place mat.

  Mr. Haverill raised his glass. “To God and country,” he said before taking a sip.

  As Lucy drank, she had a momentary urge to suggest they get television tables, take off their shoes, and go sit in a circle in the den. But such a room wouldn’t exist here; nobody had gone barefoot for more than a decade, and the idea of a folding snack table was certainly blasphemous. She should have extended the invitation for him to come to her home and almost laughed aloud at the image of her pet rabbit hopping over to Mr. Haverill to chew on the tassels of his loafers.

  There was silence but for the sound of silverware brushing against china. Then Mr. Haverill asked, “O’Malley is Irish, I presume. Is your family from Philadelphia?”

  “No. My father’s side has been in Somerville, Massachusetts, for generations. My mother’s family is from County Cork.”

  “How did they meet?” Archer asked.

  “My mother came to Boston as an au pair when she was fifteen. She met my father when the family she worked for was burgled. He was a young police officer who responded to the call and took a list of what was stolen. He never caught the crook but he had the telephone number so he asked her out instead. They were married six months later and have been ever since. Forty-one years.”

  “They’re Catholic,” Mr. Haverill proclaimed.

  If his implication was that they were still together because the church forbade divorce, nothing could be farther from the truth. Her parents’ happy marriage was a source of tremendous pride.

  “Historical allies of the Quakers, at least here in Philadelphia.” She shifted the conversation. “As I’m sure you know.”

  “And what do you mean by that?”

  “The Religious Society of Friends came to the defense of Irish immigrants because they empathized with victims of religious persecution. I read one story of Quakers patrolling Saint Joseph’s Cathedral to prevent an anti-Catholic mob from destroying it. So even though the two religions couldn’t be farther apart, they found a common ground.”

  “Who knew you were a history teacher,” Archer said.

  Lucy took a sip of her wine. “I’m fascinated by people who protect others when there is no legal or even moral obligation to do anything. You hear about firemen all the time, and believe me I admire them too, but I’m talking about the white students who lost their lives in the Civil Rights movement, the ones who jeopardize their own comfort or well-being to act on their beliefs. They seem so much nobler than the rest of us. And the Quakers were that for the Catholics.”

  “Are they nobler because they hold such strong convictions to begin with or because they act on them?”

  “I suppose both. It doesn’t do much good to believe in justice or equality or freedom of expression or whatever it might be in the abstract.”

  “So is that why you’re a police officer?” Mr. Haverill cut a piece of meat, transferred the fork to his right hand, took the bite, and then rested his fork on the side of his plate. “Part of a quest for justice?” he asked with obvious sarcasm.

  “In part, I suppose, although given my family history, I didn’t have a role model for any other career. But I’m hardly the Good Samaritan. I often chastise myself for not even stopping to help someone on the side of the road with a flat tire. No, if I’m to be that nobler type of person, it will have to be outside the realm of my work.”

  “So what is it that a detective is supposed to do?”

  “I’m told that a homicide investigator’s mission is to hear the dead speak from their graves. But I think if I ever get to the point where I’m responding to voices, it’ll be time for a career change.”

  Mr. Haverill smiled and for the first time in the evening, Lucy felt herself relax. Just then her beeper vibrated on its clip at her waist. She glanced at her watch: 11:32. Jack Harper’s cell phone number appeared on the screen.

  “I’m very sorry, but I must excuse myself for a moment.”

  Perhaps thinking she needed a powder room, Mr. Haverill gestured in the direction of a closed door.

  “Actually, I need to use a phone if you don’t mind.”

  “You’ll find one in the library. This way.” He stood up and placed his napkin onto the seat of his chair.

  “Here, I’ll show you,” Archer said. “Excuse us.” He bowed his head slightly in the direction of his father.

  Archer led her back into the burgundy sitting room that they’d been in earlier. She was glad he’d come with her. The telephone was tucked inside a small cabinet that she never would have discovered on her own. She quickly dialed Jack’s number while Archer waited.

  “Harper,” he answered.

  “It’s Lucy. What’s up?”

  “We’ve got a body. Caucasian woman. Late forties, early fifties. Looks like a suicide.”

  “Where should I meet you?” she asked instead.

  He gave her an address on Belmont Avenue. “Brace yourself. It’s on a golf course by the eighth hole but you can spare me the birdie jokes. It’s a brutal sight.”

  9

  Sunday, May 18th 12:03 a.m.

  Archer drove with the windshield wipers on to dispel the thick mist that filled the night air. Lucy listened to the sound of the wipers and watched the headlights illuminate the blackness outside.

  “That must be it,” she heard him say. “Just ahead.”

  Looking up, she could see a flurry of red and blue police lights and a cluster of official cars parked at odd angles, blocking off the intersection of Belmont Avenue and Christ Church Lane, the entrance to Fairmount Links, a public golf course. A floodlight illuminated an expanse of grass and two ambulances. Dozens of people moved in and out of the light in silhouette.

  Archer pulled to the curb.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Lucy said reluctantly, as she got out of the car. She shut the passenger door behind her, blew him a kiss, and then listened to the distinctive sound of his BMW as he shifted into gear and drove away. For a moment she had to resist the urge to sprint after him. She wanted to be home in bed curled up next to him, to feel his sides rise and fall as his breath moved in and out of his lungs, to hear his snores, to wiggle her hand between his legs and hold on to him. But this was her job. She took a deep breath and turned
around to face the site of the disaster.

  A group of policemen congregated around a large white sign prominently displaying the golf club’s logo. Several of them drank coffee from Styrofoam cups, one kept the few curiosity seekers at bay, and another spoke on a two-way radio. As she passed, she flashed her identification.

  Yellow police tape held up by makeshift stakes marked off a giant square surrounding the eighth hole. The Medical Examiner’s van was parked just outside the barrier with its back doors open. Homer Ladd, the assistant examiner, bent over the front seat of his vehicle organizing his bag of tools and checking his bag labels to make sure everything he needed for his fieldwork was in order. Despite the late hour, his night was just beginning.

  Jack stood just inside the perimeter with a camera around his neck and a Dictaphone in one hand. Although he combed his hair over his ever-increasing bald spot, tonight the wisps seemed in disarray and shot at odd angles from his head. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner.”

  “Hard duty,” she mumbled as she followed a few steps behind him toward the body. “What’s going on here?”

  A Mercedes sedan with a buckled front fender rested against a large maple tree. The driver’s-side door was open and the airbags had been deployed. Glass from the shattered windshield and broken headlights littered the well-kept grass. The roof and trunk were dotted with dents and the taillights were shattered, too. Frank Griffith, a Crime Scene technician, squatted by the passenger-side door. He lifted a short hair from the leather seat with tweezers and placed it in a Baggie.

  “What is it?” she asked, leaning over his shoulder. A faint floral aroma filled the interior of the car.