by Joan Hess
“Who are you?” asked Jordan as she buttoned her shirt. “Did you come to this desolate place to buy potted plants? You’re too old to be buying pot plants.” She laughed merrily at her witticism. “Get it?”
It did not merit a reply. I looked up at Colonel Moses Ambrose Hollow, who was quite as ugly as Nattie had promised. He looked paunchy in his CSA coat, with beady eyes, bushy eyebrows, a beakish nose, and, below a droopy mustache, a scowl that mocked Jordan’s best efforts. The sculptor had been drunk, vicious, or brilliant.
“You didn’t come for the thrill of it,” Jordan said. “The only thing less exciting than watching grass grow is waiting for geraniums to wilt. I’m supposed to water them, but I always skip a few. Do you think they silently scream when a leaf falls off?”
“Beats me,” I said, having no desire to engage in conversation with someone whose idea of a joke was to fake a suicide (or a lynching). To the left of the green, there was a path that led to the old sawmill. The wheel towering behind it was at rest, unsurprising since the stream was lackadaisical. The window boxes were filled with blooms. The Old Tavern was more imposing, made of native stone with hewn wood door and window frames. The windows on both stories had heavy drapes. A bronze plaque beside the entrance asserted that it was built in 1868 and was of historical significance. I could easily envision horse-drawn wagons parked in the shade while logs were cut into planks and bewhiskered men guzzled whiskey inside the smoky tavern. There were no utility poles or satellite dishes in sight. A black Mercedes and a blue Mustang convertible parked under a tree were the only signs of the current century.
“Looks like a movie set, doesn’t it?” Jordan tried again. “All pretense, no substance. If you peeked around the corner, you’d see that the facades are two-dimensional, just like the people who live in them. Problem is, it’d be a really boring movie, since nothing ever happens. Next time I may put the noose around my neck.” She groaned for my benefit.
“All right,” I said, “go ahead and tell me whatever it is that’s ruining your life.” I sat down on a stone bench and gave her a bright smile. Since Caron’s life was ruined weekly because of a pimple or a spat with her first-ever boyfriend, I may not have sounded overly sympathetic.
“Well, I was forced to come here against my will. They almost had to put me in a straitjacket. The people here treat me like, you know, a slave. They’re all the time ordering me to work in the fields, plant seeds, or even hose down the floors in the greenhouses. I barely get anything to eat, and I have to get up at like six in the morning. Aunt Margaret Louise won’t let me watch any of my TV shows because she says they’re vulgar. If she catches me on my cell, she like takes it away. No matter where she hides it, I always find it.”
“Do you have it with you?” I asked optimistically.
Jordan snorted. “No, it’s in the top dresser drawer in her bedroom. She took it away last night, and this morning decided that she had the sniffles and needed to stay in bed all day. I mean, who cares about the friggin’ sniffles! She carried on like ‘the sniffles’ lead to pneumonia or the plague. When I took her a cup of tea, I thought she was asleep, so I happened to glance in her drawer. She squawked like a turkey.” She lay down and stared at the sky. “But why should you care? Nobody else does.”
“I didn’t say I did care. All I want to do is make a call so someone will come pick me up. As for this slavery nonsense, there are no welts on your back, and you’re hardly emaciated. Furthermore, I don’t think jokes about slavery are amusing.”
“I’m not fat!” Jordan squeaked.
I gazed at her. “No, you’re normal, except for the hair, the tattoo, and the piercings. This current fad of self-disfiguration will be replaced by some other madness, and your look will be passé. Your hair will grow out and you can cover the tattoo, but you’ll have facial scars forever. Explaining them away will be very boring indeed.” I glanced down the road, hoping to see Angela’s shiny silver SUV. I toyed with the idea of reporting her to some licensing bureau for real estate malfeasance, but then rejected it because I did want the house, the library, the terrace, the pool, the orchard, and the idyllic meadow. Feeling better, I said to Jordan, “Were you kidnapped by gypsies, who dumped you here when they could no longer bear your charming company?”
“I wish. No, my parents made a deal with Aunt Margaret Louise to make me stay here all summer. They think I’m like incorrigible. If I am, why do they think some doddery old lady can fix me in three months?” She plucked a few blades of grass and let them blow away. “Maybe I am incorrigible. I mean, all they do is yell at me and ground me for weeks at a time. Wanna know what they’re going to do in September?” She did not give me a chance to respond with a firm denial. “Send me to some all-girls boarding school in Maine. Whoopee. They wear uniforms and go to chapel every morning. If I’m a good girl the first semester, the spring semester I’ll be able to leave the campus on Saturday afternoons for all of four hours. The next year, I get to go to a mixer every month and hang out with pimply morons from a military school. Punch, cookies, and chaperones.” She made a face not unlike that of the Hollow clan’s progenitor.
“What did you do to deserve this brutal punishment?” I asked. “Grand theft auto? Murder most foul? Failure to make the varsity lacrosse team?”
“How should I know? According to them, I screw up everything.”
I saw Nattie come out from a dirt road that led to the greenhouses and fields. With her was a short, muscular man with a wispy billy-goat beard and ponytail, wire-rimmed glasses, and a red bandanna headband. He wore threadbare denim overalls. I assumed he was Ethan, somewhat more civilized but unlikely to join the Jaycees. He and Nattie were conversing in low, agitated voices. I heard Jordan mutter something best not repeated but reeking with contempt. If I’d been her parent, I would have found a boarding school in Saudi Arabia. In a burka, no one would see her body bling or hear her crude comments.
Ethan gestured to Jordan, who arose and trudged in his direction. She and Nattie exchanged dark looks as they passed. “Claire,” Nattie said as she joined me, “please forgive the delay. That child is a mess, don’t you think? I have to admit that I admire her spunk, but she’s determined to make herself miserable. Come inside and I’ll make tea while you call your husband.”
* * *
The living room of the Old Tavern lacked the airiness of what I now thought of as my house. The furniture was heavy, and the low ceiling was oppressive. Nattie showed me the telephone and then disappeared down a hall. When I called Peter’s cell, it went to voice mail, so I crossed my fingers and called the PD. The dispatcher recognized my voice and, after a few pleasantries, told me that Peter was in a meeting. I pleaded my case until she agreed it was most surely an emergency and went to extricate him.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded with suitable urgency. “Are you okay?”
I felt as if I should respond like a princess warrior holding back the barbarians, but I doubted it would go over well. “I’m fine, darling. It’s just that I’m stuck out here without a car and I need a ride home.”
“Stuck out where?” he asked with a great deal less urgency in his voice. A less charitable person than I might have noted a tinge of irritation.
I explained the situation, tactfully omitting the drunk on the sofa and the pseudo-cide. “The house is absolutely perfect,” I went on. “It has every last thing I could ever want. This’ll give you the opportunity to see it before I buy it.”
There was a moment of silence. “There isn’t any point in arguing that I’m in a meeting with the county law enforcement department heads, is there?”
“No,” I said, since I’ve always believed that honesty is the bedrock of a successful marriage. My first husband had not held that belief, although he might have changed his mind as a chicken truck plowed into his car, killing both him and a blond coed. I gave Peter directions, reminded him of how adorable he was, and was replacing the receiver when Nattie came in with a tea tray. “This is very kind
of you, Nattie. My husband’s going to meet me at the house in half an hour. Is there any chance you might remove Moses in the interim?”
“Of course.” She poured me a cup of tea and offered a plate of cookies. “How long has your husband been a police officer, Claire?”
I gave her a recap of Peter’s rise from lieutenant to deputy chief, careful not to mention his mysterious ties to the CIA. This is not to imply I knew much. Peter had informed me that the less I knew, the less inclined I would be to blurt out some juicy, top secret tidbit. My moderately piqued response had led to supercilious remarks about my undeserved reputation for meddling in crimes that were, in his esteemed opinion, none of my business. I’d begged to differ, pointing out my invaluable contributions to solving murders. After that, the conversation had not gone well.
Nattie nodded. “We’d better go back to the house. Moses could be licking the wallpaper or dancing naked in the yard. That may not be the best first impression for your husband.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
As we walked past the statue, I saw that the rope no longer dangled from the Colonel’s arm. Jordan was not howling in the distance, so I supposed that Ethan had matters under his green thumb. I wondered if we might find Angela on the porch swing, berating herself for her thoughtless treachery. She was not, nor was Moses, to be found anywhere inside the house. Nattie continued toward the apple orchard. I put the empty wine bottles in a trash can, the grapes and Brie back in the refrigerator, and was headed for the porch when I saw Angela’s slim leather briefcase on the floor under a table in the entry. I was surprised, since she wasn’t careless.
Peter arrived a few minutes later. After he got out of the car, he studied the front of the house. I waved from the swing, like a demure country maiden. Without either of us speaking, I gave him the grand tour of the house, the pool, the orchard, and the view of the meadow and stream. We returned to the terrace and sat down on the glider. I waited with a goodly amount of trepidation.
“Well,” he said slowly, “it will require a lot of maintenance. Mowing and weeding, the pool, the flower beds…”
“That’s what checkbooks are for. The only blisters on the Rosen boys’ hands are related to regattas and golf.”
“True.” He crossed his arms. “I didn’t see a wine cellar.”
“Because we didn’t go down to the cellar,” I said, willing to play his little game as long as I prevailed in the end. “The furnishings come with the house, unless we want to donate them to charity. It needs artwork, but we can always commission a Monet to hang above the mantel. Je suis sûr que Monsieur Monet would welcome les millions de francs.”
“Je suis sûr qu’il est mort.”
“Zut alors, we’ll have to shop around.”
“You’re sure this is the house?” Peter asked softly.
My amorous attack served well as my answer. He admitted that the house was ideal for us and for Caron. Once we’d disentangled, he said, “How much, and when can we move in?”
“That’s the tricky part,” I said, then told him what Angela had said about possible complications. “We need to talk to her. She left her briefcase here, and it ought to have a business card with her cell phone number. I’ll go dig one out and call her.”
“While I investigate the cellar,” he said as we stood up.
“To search for her body?” I gasped. In that her SUV was gone, I’d logically decided she’d driven away in it, à la Occam’s razor.
“To search for wine racks.”
He handed me his cell phone, and we parted ways. I took Angela’s briefcase to the kitchen island and pulled out its disappointingly meager contents. There were several letters from her lawyer, but I’d already heard in great detail about the latest legal maneuvers. I put aside some manila folders and scrabbled in the bottom of the briefcase until I found her business cards in a monogrammed gold case.
I dialed her cell number and held my breath until it went to voice mail. I tried her office and was informed by a recorded voice that they were closed for the day. I replaced the files and letters and waited for Peter.
“Did you get hold of her?” he asked when he emerged from the hall.
“No, and her office is closed. I feel as though I should do something, but I don’t know what.” My characteristic stoicism was washed away by a wave of discouragement. “What if someone else is signing an offer at this very minute? I’ve looked at every house for sale in Farberville. Even if we have to build, we’ll never find property with an apple orchard and a meadow. I’ve always wanted a meadow of my own.”
Peter put his arms around me. “You told me the house isn’t on the market. No one is going to buy it from under us. Angela will call tonight with an excuse about why she had to leave. You will accept her apology and tell her we’re prepared to sign an offer immediately.”
“Can you put up yellow tape and claim it’s a crime scene? Then no one else can even look at it.”
He winced. “The fact that Angela drove off without you isn’t exactly a crime.”
“Well, it should be.” I took the briefcase with me as we went out to his car. As we drove home, Peter told me that he was flying to Little Rock early the next morning and Atlanta in the evening. I pleaded for him to wait until we located Angela and signed papers, but he countered with nonsense about the governor and the state’s attorney general and his complete faith in me to handle the real estate transaction. I made several uncouth remarks about the state officials, the task force, and his exalted status with unlimited power to reschedule lame, dreary meetings in which everything was rehashed to the consistency of mush, and went so far as to mention the name of Angela’s divorce lawyer. Peter spent the remainder of the ride verbally stocking the wine cellar with Bordeaux and merlots and champagne from les châteaux de whatever.
* * *
The next morning Peter left at dawn. I lingered in bed until a more civilized hour, attended to the necessities to begin the day, poured a cup of coffee, and called Angela’s cell number. I’d done so the previous evening every fifteen minutes until midnight without luck, and I wasn’t shocked to be informed that her message box was full. I moved on to the real estate office, officially known as Bartleby-King and Associates. The receptionist answered with a manically friendly “Good morning! Welcome to Bartleby-King and Associates! To whom may I direct your call?”
“Angela Delmond, please.”
“Ah, let me see if she’s free.” She put me on hold for a minute. “No, Ms. Delmond is not available at this time. Let me transfer you to one of our best agents, a recent graduate of—”
“I need to speak to Angela.”
“I’m sure you’ll be just as satisfied with Gilda Cannella. Let me transfer—”
“Transfer me to the broker.”
“Well, Mr. King’s out of the country. I’ll have to put you on hold while I see if Mr. Bartleby’s with a client. Your name is…?”
“Claire Malloy. I want to sign an offer on the house that Angela showed me yesterday.”
I was replaced on hold and allowed to listen to elevator music for a good five minutes. When the receptionist came back on the line, her bubbliness had evaporated. “Mr. Bartleby just left for a closing. If you’ll leave your number, he’ll call you back in the next day or two.”
This meant I would have ample time to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica before I spoke to him. I gave her my number, then hung up and went to refill my coffee cup. Caron was staring at a cabinet crammed with boxes and cans.
She frowned at me. “If I try to extract my cereal box, I’ll be buried alive by saltines and cornflakes. Don’t put that on my headstone, okay?”
“Have some toast,” I said. I could not prevent myself from comparing her to Jordan. Instead of a purple Mohawk and piercings, Caron had my curly red hair and freckles. Even her earlobes were unsullied. On the other hand, her expression was vaguely reminiscent of Jordan’s (and Colonel Hollow’s). “Very soon you’ll have a kitchen with a dozen
cabinets and storage shelves. You will never again live in fear of being struck dead by a can of corn.”
“What does that mean?”
“I found the perfect house. It has four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a balcony from which to drop rose petals, a pool, a big terrace, an orchard—”
“You bought a house Without Consulting Me? What if I don’t like it?”
“I invited you to come along yesterday, but you were too busy talking on the phone to Inez about Joel. You spent the night at her house, for pity’s sake. Unless he proposed, it could have waited an hour.” I saw no reason to mention that the hour had lasted more than three hours. “If I may paraphrase your remark, you said you didn’t care what house we bought as long as you had your own bathroom.”
“Of course I care! I have to live there for a whole year, you know. I’d be absolutely humiliated if I invited my friend over to a teepee or something. Does it have an attic with a resident psychotic who stumbles around in the house after we’ve gone to bed? I’ll bet he has a chain saw.”
“I believe it’s a machete.”
She stuck a piece of bread in the toaster. “That’s a relief.”
In the living room, I described the house in detail, emphasizing the glories of her private bathroom and walk-in closet. When I mentioned the meadow and stream, she interrupted. “There aren’t any meadows or streams in Farberville. Just where is this house?”
“Not too far,” I said glibly, “and the pool is enormous. You can have the best pool parties all summer. We’ll get a grill so you can fix hot dogs and hamburgers.”
Caron rarely bought my evasions. “How far?”
“Ten minutes or so.” I was sure Dr. Spock would allow a parent to fib if it was in the child’s best interest. “It’s in a place called Hollow Valley.”
“So it’s hollow? It sounds more like a hole than a valley. Are there Hobbits?”
I gave her a brief rundown of the history of the place, omitting any references to the less-desirable resident members of the Hollow family. “We haven’t signed an offer because Angela drove off, leaving me there. She won’t answer her cell phone, and she’s not at the office. At least I think she’s not at the office,” I said slowly, “but I do have her briefcase because she left it at the house.”
