by Lois Winston
Zack wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “You deserve a medal for exercising such superhuman patience with her.”
“Part of me hopes the judge throws the book at her. I can use the vacation.” I twisted my neck so our eyes met. “Does that make me a bad person?”
“I’m not blaming you.”
I nodded toward the group of women glaring at us. “They do.”
“Do you care?”
“No, but I suppose we should drive all of them home.”
Zack and I studied the group of women, coatless and huddled together for warmth against the snow. Flakes gathered on their eyelashes before melting into large droplets that streamed down their cheeks. As the wind whipped around us, several glanced back toward the house where they’d left their outerwear. Others wrapped their arms around their torsos and stamped their feet.
“There are too many of them to fit into your car and mine in a single trip,” said Zack. “And I’m guessing you don’t want to leave any of them alone in the house while we shuttle the others.”
“Definitely not.” Who knew what revenge these women would take against me for allowing the police to cart off Lucille and Harriet?
Zack pulled his phone from his pocket. “It’s too cold to leave them waiting on the sidewalk. Fogarty had the right idea. I’ll order up a few Ubers.”
I ushered the women back into the house to wait for their rides. I was about to offer them cups of hot tea and coffee to warm themselves when I noticed they’d helped themselves to lunch. Dirty dishes covered my dining room table. I entered the kitchen and found open containers of food lining the counter. Someone had spilled milk on the counter and hadn’t bothered to wipe up the mess. Mephisto slurped at the puddle that had collected on the floor.
The sight before me released my inner bitch. Once more I cursed under my breath as tears filled my eyes. With my precarious financial situation, I couldn’t afford to waste food. I’d had enough of these selfish, ungrateful women and their leader. If I had to, I’d padlock the refrigerator and the pantry, leaving only enough food available each day for Lucille’s lunch. Nothing more.
“No way am I offering those commie octogenarians hot beverages while they wait,” I told Zack as he helped me return whatever food remained to the refrigerator and pantry. I then stood in front of the open refrigerator and surveyed the depleted contents. The Daughters of the October Revolution had helped themselves to the food I’d planned to serve for dinner that night.
“We’ll order takeout,” said Zack.
I glanced at the clock on the stove, worried my sons would be driving home from school in what was quickly becoming a major storm. But at that moment I heard Alex’s car pull into the driveway. I sighed with relief. One less worry. “The snow is getting worse. Will anyone deliver in this weather?”
“You’re forgetting something,” said Zack.
“What’s that?”
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays the pizza deliveryman from the swift completion of his appointed rounds.”
“And here I always thought that was the mailmen’s creed.”
“Mailmen and pizza deliverymen.”
~*~
An hour later Zack, Alex, Nick, and I were finishing up our pizza dinner. The thieving commies had bypassed the refrigerator salad crisper during their food raid, leaving me the fixings for a healthy accompaniment to an otherwise carb-and-calorie-loaded dinner. The pizza even arrived semi-hot. A few minutes in the oven brought it back to optimal temperature. Zack and I even enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner, thanks to Lucille’s absence.
The boys were clearing the dishes and loading the dishwasher, and Zack was feeding a bit of pizza crust to Ralph when the phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID, noted Cloris’s name on the display, and answered the call.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said.
“What?”
“We received a threatening letter from The Sentinel.”
“What did it say?”
“He called us liars for denying we’d received that previous letter from him and said we’d be sorry.”
Something didn’t sound right. I mulled over Cloris’s words for a moment before it hit me. “How would he know you denied having received the letter? Did you refute the buyers’ claim to anyone other than me?”
“Only the police and our attorney. I’m assuming our attorney told their attorney.”
“And no one mentioned it to any reporters?”
“We haven’t spoken to any reporters. Neither has our attorney. And nothing about our denial appeared in any of the news articles I’ve seen about the lawsuit.”
Neither had anything turned up in my online searches. The lawsuit only stated that the buyers claimed The Sentinel had contacted Cloris and Gregg several days before settlement.
I also knew from my prior interactions with the police that no one on either the town or county force would divulge such information. They’d mouth the standard line about an ongoing investigation. “So how would The Sentinel know you deny having received correspondence from him?”
Silence hung on the line between us. Finally, Cloris said, “Damn, you’re good. Ever consider leaving the magazine business and hanging out a shingle?”
“Hardly. I’m not that good. I merely employed simple deductive reasoning. If you weren’t so tied up in knots about this lawsuit, you would have come to the same conclusion immediately. Anyway, I think you’ve got them. There is no Sentinel, Cloris. You and Gregg are the victims of a couple of con artists.”
“How do we prove that?”
“You don’t. Leave it in the hands of the police and the detective your attorney hired. This note is the buyers’ first slip up. It won’t be their last. Guaranteed.”
“I hope you’re right. I haven’t slept in days.” A yawn punctuated her words.
After we ended the conversation, I filled Zack in on what Cloris had said while we took Mephisto out to do his nightly business. Three inches of snow covered the driveway and sidewalk. Large flakes continued to fall, whipping around in the wind. Another few miles per hour, and we’d reach full-fledged blizzard mode.
Mephisto is not one of those dogs that loves to romp in the snow. Zack had to drag him to the nearest tree, the one Harriet Kleinhample had dinged yet again earlier in the day.
“I agree with you regarding the scam theory,” he said as we waited for Mephisto to sniff out his target. “Nothing else makes sense at this point.”
“Unless The Sentinel is omnipotent,” I said, stamping my feet to keep warm.
Zack raised an eyebrow. “Highly unlikely.”
Well, duh!
Mephisto finally christened the tree and surrounding snow, then made a beeline back toward the house, dragging Zack with him. I’d never seen Devil Dog run so fast. I guess he didn’t like cold paws—or cold anything else. Which begs the question: if dogs are so smart, why haven’t they learned to use litter pans?
~*~
The storm petered out by nine o’clock that evening. We woke the next morning to a winter wonderland certain to devolve into a gray slushy mess within hours. For now, though, I enjoyed the pristine sparkling beauty of the undisturbed snow as I sipped my morning coffee. With my first interview not scheduled until ten-thirty and my mother-in-law still the unwilling guest of the Westfield police, I took pleasure in a long steamy shower and a leisurely morning breakfast, compliments of the amateur chef who had shared my bed last night.
“Where to this morning?” asked Zack as he flipped pancakes.
“Albert Owens and his wife. We’re meeting them at their home in Bedminster.”
Owens had retired and turned his business over to his two sons. He and his wife divided their time between their New Jersey estate and a semi-private island in the Bahamas. They’d flown his private jet back to New Jersey to host their annual extended family Thanksgiving Day bash. I’d caught them days before they were scheduled to fly back south for the winter.
“Does he know why you want to interview him?” asked Zack.
“His secretary passed along my request.”
Zack placed a plate of pancakes, sausage, and eggs in front of me. “I hope she does a better job of relaying messages than Brittany.”
“No need to worry. Mrs. Owens returned my call to schedule the appointment. We had a nice preliminary chat on the phone. I got the feeling she’d like to hire me to organize her photos. She said she has decades of photos stored in dozens of plastic shoe boxes on her closet shelf.”
“Would you?”
“Certainly.” Even though my debt rivaled the GNP of Djibouti, Mrs. Owens probably spent more on yearly salaries for her household staff. I’d be delighted to organize her family snapshots in return for a sizeable check. Then again, billionaires are often notorious skinflints. “Depending on what she’s willing to pay.”
~*~
A locked gate separated the Owens estate from the surrounding Bedminster countryside. Zack pressed the button on a console situated on the side of the short driveway leading to the gate. A voice on the other end asked us to identify ourselves. When Zack gave our names, the gate swung open, allowing us to proceed up an already plowed and salted, tree-lined, winding road. The estate, hidden from the main road and large enough to double as a boutique hotel or a small castle, came into view as we made the last turn.
I gaped at the sprawling faux French chateau, easily twenty thousand square feet in size, which placed it at least fifteen times larger than my own home. “I’ll bet there are rooms in that house no one ever enters except for the maids when they dust. Why does anyone need such a huge home?”
“Status,” said Zack.
“I could live like a queen on what they probably pay in real estate taxes every year.”
“Jealous?”
I shrugged. “Not really. However, if Virginia Owens does want me to organize her family photos, she’s going to pay enough for me to cover my real estate taxes for the year.”
Zack barked out a hearty laugh as he parked the car on the circular drive in front of the house. He continued chuckling under his breath as we ascended the brick stairs that led to the home’s double-door entrance. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
He waved his arm to indicate the house and surrounding estate. “You really expect me to believe you’re not the least bit jealous of all this?”
Busted. “I suppose if I had a house this large, I could assign Lucille to her own wing, provide her with a personal maid, and never have to deal with her.”
He laughed again. “Now you’re talking.”
Once he regained his composure, I rang the doorbell. The door swung open before the chimes pealed the seventh note of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” A woman dressed in full servant regalia, complete with white starched apron over a utilitarian black dress, stood before us. She even wore one of those frilly white maid’s caps I’ve never seen anywhere other than in old black and white movies and PBS dramas.
When I introduced myself, she ushered us into a white marble foyer as large as my living room, dining room, and kitchen combined. A sweeping marble staircase curved around the back half of the room from the left side, winding its way up to a second-floor balcony. A massive crystal chandelier suspended over the center of the foyer caught the sunlight streaming in from floor-to-ceiling windows. Hundreds of rainbows produced by the chandelier’s prisms, danced along the circular foyer walls.
After taking our coats, the maid led us into a sitting room to the right of the foyer and said, “Wait here, please. Mrs. Owens will be with you shortly.”
I tried not to gawk at my surroundings, filled with antique furnishings and several original Impressionist paintings hanging on the walls. Not just any Impressionists, either. I counted two Renoirs, a Degas, and a Monet.
Before Dead Louse of a Spouse had slipped his earthly coil and left me in debt up the wazoo, we had lived a comfortable middle-class life, even though in my blissful ignorance I had no idea we lived a smoke and mirrors existence built on Karl’s personal Ponzi scheme of robbing Peter to pay Paul and his bookie. Suddenly I realized just how much of a world of difference there was between comfortable middle-class and the One Percent.
Zack, on the other hand, appeared unimpressed by the grandeur of this castle on a hill. He had moved into the apartment above my garage to escape the celebrity spotlight of Manhattan. Before we met, he had dated models and actresses, appearing more than once on the pages of People magazine, a starlet always on his arm for some gala or opening. He claimed he never wanted anything to do with the A-list life and blamed all of it on a money-hungry publicist with paparazzi on his payroll. Still, I could easily picture him at a cocktail party in this room. I, on the other hand, felt totally out of my element.
I turned from staring at the Renoir as the sound of heels clicking on marble approached. Virginia Owens stepped into the room, took one look at me and all the color drained from her face.
SEVENTEEN
Zack reached for Virginia Owens, taking hold of her elbow to steady her. “Are you all right?” I asked as he led her to the nearest chair.
She quickly regained her composure. Color flooded back into her cheeks, due in part, no doubt, to her embarrassment. She waved away my concern. “I’m fine, thank you. I should know not to skip breakfast, but I was running late this morning and didn’t want to keep you waiting.”
She extended her right hand. A four-carat marquis diamond sparkled on her ring finger. Her face indicated she frequented a skilled plastic surgeon to stave off the ravages of time, but the crepe-like skin and blue veins lining the back of her hand gave a truer indication of her age. “Virginia Owens,” she said. “And you’re Anastasia Pollack?”
I nodded. “Should we ask the maid to bring you something?”
“No need. She’s already preparing a tray.” She turned to Zack. “You probably don’t remember me, Mr. Barnes, but we met at a charity auction for the homeless a few years ago. I bid on several of your photographs.”
“Did you win the bids?” he asked.
“Of course. They’re hanging in my husband’s study. I’ll show them to you later.”
“I’d like that,” said Zack.
“I must say, I am rather surprised to see you here,” she continued.
“Why is that?”
“Isn’t an assignment like this a little beneath your stellar reputation?” She cast a critical eye in my direction, sizing me up as if she were interviewing a prospective servant. Her attitude suggested she found me unworthy of living on the same planet as Zack—and her.
“Would you prefer a staff photographer took your picture?” I asked.
Virginia Owens placed a palm across her breast. “Of course not. I’m honored that Mr. Barnes will be shooting me. I only meant…” Her voice trailed off, and she abruptly changed the subject. “What made you decide to invite me to take part in this story, Mrs. Pollack?”
Time for a not-so-little white lie. “My editorial director suggested you and your husband. She wanted a cross-section of couples, some with recognizable names along with a few average Joes and Janes.”
“I see.”
The maid returned with a tray holding an antique Paul Revere silver coffee service. A second maid followed with a tray containing silverware, Raynaud Duchesse china, and an assortment of fruits, cheeses, and teacakes. I stole my gaze from the silver and china that loudly proclaimed Virginia Owens never settled for anything but the best. The paintings aside, I could pay off all my debts and live forever in the lap of extreme luxury just from the various antiques in this room.
Yet, if Karl hadn’t left me in debt, I never would have met Zack. I suppose there’s a reason for everything. We just don’t always know what it is at first.
I studied Virginia Owens. From the top of her perfectly coifed and highlighted ash blond—not-a-hair-out-of-place—head, to her Size Four winter-white cashmere slacks and blush silk shirt, to the tips of her gray suede Chanel pu
mps, she looked like she’d stepped out of the pages of Town & Country magazine. Still, I wouldn’t trade her life for mine. I’ve got Zack, and I’ve got my sons. That makes me the wealthiest pauper in the world.
The maids placed the trays on an eighteenth-century Chippendale sideboard beneath the Monet and proceeded to serve us. I held onto the cup and saucer, worth more than my weekly salary, for dear life. I didn’t dare risk balancing a dessert plate on my lap, no matter how yummy those teacakes looked.
“Will your husband be joining us?” I asked. “We did want the male perspective on the importance of maintaining family histories for future generations.”
“Unfortunately, he was called away this morning on an important business matter.”
Strike two. Or three, considering I’d basically eliminated Coach Renquist from contention. I forced my expression to remain neutral to cover up my disappointment and said, “That’s too bad. I was looking forward to meeting him.”
Virginia Owens raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?”
“I’ve never met a real estate tycoon.” I smiled as I placed my cup and saucer on the coffee table and pulled out my tape recorder. “Shall we begin the interview?”
She relaxed back in her chair and gestured for me to proceed. After half an hour I had only a smattering of basic information for my article. She asked more questions about me than she answered about herself. Citing privacy concerns, she kept her responses general rather than specific. “We always worry about the possibility of a kidnapping,” she explained, even refusing to divulge how she and her husband had met. Did she fear a time-traveling kidnapper?
Still, her concerns didn’t prevent her from posing in front of her Monet. In fact, she suggested the shot. I suppose she had more confidence in her hi-tech security system than American Woman’s readership. After all, you never know when one of those middle-class housewives might troll an issue in search of a potential ransom candidate.
“May I see your family photos?” I asked, hoping to salvage something from the wasted morning.
“Of course.” Virginia Owens placed her dishes on the coffee table and stood. “This way, please.”
