by Noreen Wald
I smiled; wow, what an opportunity. Where would I snoop first? “Of course it’s okay, Carla, take as long as you like.”
Once we were in the library, I asked, “Where is Mr. Arthur’s office?”
“Why, it’s in the room next to this one. Miss Kate does all her writing at her desk here in the library and she likes to have Mr. Jonathan nearby.” Carla served me coffee, adding a dollop of cream, then started out the double doors. “Miss O’Hara, you see that door?” She gestured to the far end of the library. “It leads into Mr. Jonathan’s office, though his bedroom’s on the fourth floor; he’s always joking about the inconvenience.”
“Is Caroline’s room on the fourth floor as well?”
“No, her room’s on the third floor, right across from Miss Connor’s suite. Will there be anything else, Miss O’Hara?”
I smiled. “No, thank you, Carla, you’ve been most helpful.”
Sipping my coffee, I waited until I heard Carla go out the front door. Then I crossed the length of the library—not a short span—and tried the door to Jonathan’s office. The square room, located in the back of the mansion, was larger than I expected. Its two windows faced north, overlooking a flagstone patio and a small backyard. The furniture all came from the Doyle Galleries, one of my favorite antique stores. If we had our druthers, Mom and I would have chosen Doyle’s over Rooms-to-Go, but credit considerations had strongly influenced our decor. Jonathan’s British Colonial motif was reinforced by his strategically placed accessories: a campaign chest, a full-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip circa 1953, and the Union Jack, which stood in the corner behind his desk. All harking back to a time when the sun never set on the British Empire. Eerie.
Jonathan, no surprise, was a neat freak. His desktop held a phone, a computer, a mouse pad, and a picture of him and Kate, both on horseback in formal riding attire, with several hounds in the foreground and an English manor house in the background. And nothing else. Not a piece of paper. Not a paper clip. Not a pen. Did someone really work here? Or was this a still from Out of Africa?
All the desk drawers were locked. The distressed file cabinets, also from Doyle’s, and looking as if they were decades removed and continents away from modern-day Manhattan, were unlocked. But a cursory inspection indicated that the papers, primarily old business correspondence, seemed to be innocuous.
Wondering how much time I had before someone came home, I checked out his bookcase. We liked some of the same authors: Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Beryl Markam. There were also several writing manuals, including one I considered to be the Bible: Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, as well as one titled How to Write a True-Crime Thriller. What could the dear boy be working on?
“Is there something you’re looking for, Miss O’Hara?”
Shaken, I spun around to face the formidable Mrs. Madison, straddling the open doorway between the library and Jonathan’s office. She didn’t look happy. Even though I felt every bit as intimidated as the second Mrs. de Winter had been made to feel by Mrs. Danvers, I decided on a strong offensive play. “Mrs. Madison, you startled me. Did you knock on the library door? If you did, I didn’t hear you.”
She seemed taken aback, but made a swift recovery. “I certainly did knock and, being concerned when you didn’t answer, I entered, only to discover you in Mr. Arthur’s office.” Mrs. Madison made it sound as if I’d just been tried and convicted of mass murder.
“It’s not as sinister as you might think, Mrs. Madison. The door was ajar, and I must admit the furnishings caught my eye. I just stepped in to admire this charming room,” I lied. Damn good thing she hadn’t arrived in time to catch me trying to pry open Jonathan’s locked desk drawers. Or had she?
“Well, it’s most unusual for Mr. Arthur to leave this door open. I’ll be sure to mention it to him.” Mrs. Madison stood to one side, allowing me to precede her out of the room. She locked the door behind us. “Is there something you need, Miss O’Hara?” She paraphrased her original question.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Madison. As I told you, I wasn’t looking for anything, just absorbing the atmosphere.”
“Then I’ll leave you to your work.” She glanced over at my computer—its screen blank—and at my legal pad—its pages empty. Her gaunt face was expressionless, but her tone imperious.
“Miss Connors will not be returning until after you’ve finished for the day. Is there any message you wish me to give her?”
“Tell her to have a nice day. And please tell her I have to attend a funeral tomorrow; I’ll see her on Thursday. Oh, and Mrs. Madison...”
“Yes, Miss O’Hara?”
“You have a nice day too.”
She pulled the double doors shut more forcefully than I considered necessary. Since my snooping had come to an ignominious end, I went to work.
I met my mother at Gypsy Rose’s tearoom and the three of us had lunch together. “So, Mom, what about Aaron Rubin?” I asked.
“Why, Maura O’Hara, you’re blushing,” Gypsy Rose teased.
“Did my mother tell you she went out with two men last night behind her daughter’s back?”
“For your information, Jake, I thought Aaron was charming, witty, and smart. And good-looking too. That’s why when he called this morning, I agreed to have dinner with him on Sunday...after this ghastly week is over.”
“Fast worker.” Was I referring to my mother or her new beau? I turned to Gypsy Rose, whose forkful of chicken was suspended in midair, her mouth agape, forming a perfect O. My mother did sound way out of character.
“Do you think we should make a list for the bridal shower?”
“Right after I buy my matron of honor gown.” Gypsy Rose giggled.
“You two are very funny,” my mother said, her tone terse.
“Now you know how I feel when you’re arranging my marriage to any and all available strangers.” I smiled, but deep inside the recesses of my black soul, I had to confess that I felt a tad jealous of my mother.
I left Gypsy Rose and Mom to their wedding plans—better than the funeral arrangements they’d been obsessing over—saying I had an appointment. The truth was, I had no appointment, but I was going to pay an unscheduled visit to Patrick Hemmings, hypnotherapist and rumored womanizer.
I stopped at home and called Ben Rubin. In my pique last night, I’d forgotten to mention that Laura T., the celebrity ghostwriter, had spotted Emmie in Hemmings’s waiting room, and Modesty believed that Patrick had more than a passing acquaintance with Barbara. Rubin was not at his desk. I left a lengthy message, getting cut off by a beep before I could finish.
I washed my face and carefully applied makeup while the curling iron heated. Then I changed into a cream silk shirt, matching trousers with flattering front pleats, and bone-colored kid stacked-heeled sandals, telling myself I wouldn’t have time to change before my meeting with Barbara’s brother and the ghostwriters, but asking myself if I preened for Patrick.
The Lexington Avenue bus dropped me two blocks from Patrick’s Murray Hill office. It was four o’clock; I’d better hustle if I wanted to be on time for cocktails at the Carlyle at five. Both his building, one of those post-World War II monstrosities—all square and no style—and the street itself, though situated between Park and Lex, looked a little seedy. An area for people on their way up or on their way down. I felt confident that Patrick Hemmings was on his way uptown.
A few feet from Patrick’s doorway, I started as Dennis Kim emerged from the lobby and walked toward Park Avenue. His cream-colored Rolls awaited, illegally parked in front of an old brownstone a few buildings west of Patrick’s. I ran after him. “Yo, Dennis!” It was his turn to be startled.
“Jake, what a pleasant surprise.”
He had been about to put the key in the car door when my unladylike screech had interrupted him. He sauntered back to where I wai
ted under the canopy in front of Patrick’s building. “So, Dennis, been doing a little past life regression?”
“I have enough trouble in this lifetime. How about you?”
Thinking this is one situation he wasn’t going to sing his way out of, I said, “Or is Patrick Hemmings a client of yours?”
“Jake, haven’t we established that I never discuss my clients? You of all people should grasp the concept of professional confidentiality.” Those gold-flecked eyes glittered in the late afternoon sunlight.
A meter maid ticketed his Rolls as I spat, “Dennis, I hope you spend all of your future lives in hell, serving for eternity as F. Lee Bailey’s second chair.”
The receptionist’s well-coiffed gray hair matched the gray walls in Patrick’s waiting room. Matronly, professional, and warm, she graciously explained that Mr. Hemmings had someone with him, but then he had no appointments scheduled for the rest of the afternoon. “Please have a seat and as soon as he’s free, I’ll tell Mr. Hemmings you’re here.”
Now that I was here, I wondered why I’d come. Patrick would play the confidentiality card too. Did I really think he’d tell me if Emmie and Barbara had been patients? Clients? Customers? What did nonmedical hypnotists call the people who paid for their services? I’d about decided to leave when the door from Patrick’s office opened and Kate Lloyd Connors came out. I buried my head in Volume III of The Journal of Hypnotism and Kate exited the waiting room, apparently not noticing me. Less than a minute later, the receptionist ushered me into the inner sanctum.
“Jake O’Hara, how nice to see you. What can I do for you?” Patrick managed to sound pleased but puzzled. A far more cordial greeting than I’d expected, based on our last meeting.
“I…er…was in the neighborhood and thought I’d take a chance that you were free.”
“Well, good...good.”
“Yes. I…er…found a self-help writer to assist you with your book-in-progress. Her name’s Jane.” I breathed easier, having come up with a reason for being there. Poor Jane.
“Great, I’ll look forward to meeting her.”
Screw this. Why should I care what this man thinks? I decided to go for the jugular. “Look, Patrick, I’m sorry if I seemed out of line yesterday afternoon. Whatever’s going on between you and Caroline is none of my business.”
He flushed, then furiously fidgeted with the file on his desk. “Jake, Caroline and I have a professional relationship, that’s all. I’m close to the family and consider Kate a good friend, but Caroline is my patient.”
Now I knew the correct term. “Do your patients usually become so amorous?”
His blueberry eyes were darting all over the room. “I can’t discuss my cases. I’m sure you understand that, Jake.”
Case closed. Files sealed. Contracts confidential. Oh yes, I understood. I also understood that while I couldn’t get any answers from Patrick, Ben Rubin sure as hell could.
From a dirty phone booth on Madison and 36th, I checked my phone messages. Ben Rubin thanked me for the information, but Emmie’s datebook indicated that she’d been a patient of Hemmings. Ben would be talking to Patrick later today and said he’d question him about Barbara as well. Then, with a chuckle, Ben asked if I thought his father and my mother were an item.
I rode the Madison Avenue bus up to the Carlyle. The bar was packed wall to wall with smartly dressed people, paying ten dollars a pop for a martini. Maybe Barbara’s brother would be buying.
Eleven
Campbell’s, the funeral home that WASP families valued above all other Manhattan mortuaries, resounded with a string quartet playing Bach and the murmured condolences offered by the large gathering of mourners. By ten thirty on Wednesday morning the crowd spilled out of Chapel A into the hall, the foyer, and onto the sidewalk, necessitating the fussy funeral director to open the doors to Chapel B. His assistant undertakers, dressed like his clones in cutaways, striped pants, and spats, scurried to seat the enormous somber crowd, as well as those still arriving.
Ginger, Modesty, Mom, Gypsy Rose, and I served as greeters in the foyer, while Barbara’s brother, Bill, and her Aunt Lucy and Uncle Henry Bernside, formed a mini receiving line in Chapel A, the designated viewing room. We ladies lined up just inside the front entrance, shaking hands, hugging, kissing cheeks and often crying, as the mourners walked in from the blazing hot June sunshine to a blast of Campbell’s arctic air-conditioning. Those paying their respects were an eclectic group. Among the first to arrive were Detective Ben Rubin and his father, Aaron. My mother fluttered her lashes as Aaron Rubin pecked her right cheek; then she offered her left cheek to Ben. I resented my mother flirting at a funeral with both Rubins. I might be interested in Ben Rubin, and he might be interested in me, if he wasn’t more interested in what I knew. But why did my mother’s attraction to his father still annoy me?
The ghostwriters came out in full force, most arriving early enough to sit en masse, filling the rows behind the family in Chapel A. They seemed to be the most grief-stricken. The Ethical Culture Society members and Barbara’s small family were much more self-contained, reserved and formal. Angela Scotti arrived early too, swathed like an elderly Italian widow in basic black. Only Angela’s mourning ensemble was Versace. Her two bodyguards sported thousand-dollar Armani suits and bent noses. Other, less well-dressed Mafia types trailed behind them. But, by far, the largest clique of mourners were the morbidly curious, multicultural necrophiles of varying ages and attire, who shared a passion: attending the funerals of the rich, the famous, or the sensationalized dead. The press and television coverage of Barbara’s and Emmie’s deaths had been more than sensational enough to draw ghouls from the five boroughs as well as far distant states. And Barbara’s brother had made a big mistake in not limiting the memorial to invitation only. The media circus, with their cameras and microphones, were behind barricades. However, I suspected many more of them were in the chapels, passing as real people. There were several cops posing as people too.
Modesty’s funeral attire went beyond bizarre. Anne Rice’s vampire morphed with Mary Shelley’s monster. Barbara’s Aunt Lucy had gasped out loud, then tried but failed to turn that gasp into an embarrassed cough when she’d met Modesty earlier this morning. Ginger and I were worried about Modesty’s eulogy. Last night, over cocktails with Bill, which, thank God, had turned out to be an early evening, Ginger and I shared the gist of our short eulogies. Modesty had remained mute, claiming she was still working on the final draft. Barbara had been the only woman Modesty ever liked and, as her sponsor, Barbara had kept Modesty in check; now God only knew what miserable Modesty might say.
I peered around a weeping Mrs. McMahon—who never missed any wake held within three square miles of Carnegie Hill—and through the open doors at the long stream of mourners. I watched as Dennis Kim circled the block for the second time, then pulled into a no parking zone to the right of the funeral parlor. Mr. Kim was with him. They took their places at the end of the line as a limousine stopped directly in front of the door, and Caroline Evans emerged.
Caroline’s retro skintight black satin catsuit and hip-high patent leather boots—worn despite the heat—when combined with her Night of the Living Dead makeup, had to win the prize for the most outrageous funeral attire ever to cross Campbell’s threshold. “Who is that?” my mother asked in horror.
“Kate Lloyd Connors’ adopted daughter. Now can you admit how comparatively well I’ve turned out?”
Caroline got in line behind Dennis and snuggled up to him, spoon-style, her arms circling him. The mourners at the front of the line buzzed and, reluctantly, I turned away from Caroline’s antics to see who had so intrigued the crowd. The chauffeur held the limo door open and Kate—agile and lithe as a girl—had stepped out.
So she had known Barbara. And well enough to drag Caroline along to her memorial. Kate’s black hat, like the one Audrey Hepburn had worn in Breakfast at Tiffa
ny’s, and a black linen summer Chanel drew all eyes to her. Big, square-shaped sunglasses and the huge hat covered most of Kate’s famous face, but her crowd of admirers had no trouble recognizing the reigning Queen of Murder Mysteries. Jonathan exited last, took Kate’s arm, and they cut right through the line and into the foyer.
Gypsy Rose hustled a weeping Jane D. along. “Wipe your eyes, darling, and do hurry on in so you can sit with the rest of the ghostwriters in the A chapel.” Then Gypsy Rose turned to me, literary stars shining in her eyes. “Jake, you must introduce me to Kate Lloyd Connors.”
Kate kissed me on the cheek and simultaneously held Modesty’s hand, saying, “We’ve met—at a writer’s conference, wasn’t it? I’m only sorry we’re meeting again under such sad circumstances.” For once Modesty was speechless, as surprised as me that Kate remembered her. I introduced Kate to my awed mother and a gushing-at-length Gypsy Rose. Where had Ginger disappeared to? Someone had to move this line along. Jonathan half bowed to me and Mom, then half pushed Kate out of Gypsy Rose’s clutches, aiming, at my suggestion, for Chapel A. Who’d ever have expected such a crowd? The Connors contingent might have to sit in the bleachers.
The funeral director appeared at my side and discreetly suggested that our little receiving line move into Chapel A. The Campbell staff would seat latecomers for five more minutes; then the service would begin and no one else would be admitted. That was okay with me. Dealing with my fellow mourners, my own grief, and my pinched toes in the designer pumps Mom had insisted that I buy, I felt exhausted and cranky, despite having fallen into bed at ten last night. Mom, Gypsy Rose, Modesty, and I took our assigned places in the second row behind Barbara’s family. Where the hell had Ginger gone? I put a program on the chair next to me. Both chapels were packed and stragglers weren’t shy about grabbing any empty spot. What ever happened to WASP decorum? Or were all these pushy people from Staten Island?
