A startled Samantha recognized the man’s voice. “Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “Art Chamberlain! What on earth are you doing out here?”
Chapter Nine
McLain paced the end of his enormous living room, and tried not to snort out loud. Seldom recently had he been as thoroughly disgusted as he was at this moment. He glared toward the huge leather couch where Samantha sat comforting their neighbor, and fought to overcome his distaste for the man Chamberlain.
“Really, Mr. Chamberlain, we do understand.” Samantha patted the man’s shoulder reassuringly. “We’re just sorry we startled you so.”
At that, McLain did snort out loud.
Samantha glared at McLain.
“Thank you, Mrs. Masters. I know it’s difficult to understand,” Mr. Chamberlain shot a mild, reproachful look at the angry ex-Marine, “but Agnes is sometimes rather . . . opinionated. Drinking is something she just can’t tolerate.” A blush as delicate as any girl’s crept up from his collar. “When I realized that it wasn’t worth the fight to try to keep a bottle in the house, I began keeping one in the Stoddards’s—I beg your pardon,” he flashed a glance at McLain, “in your tool shed, Colonel McLain. It being mostly underground, you see, things stay cooler there.” He spread his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. “I hate warm scotch.” He looked toward his host, wanting him to see that he was only trying to get around a problem. A personal problem.
Samantha glared at McLain again. McLain cleared his throat with a force that threatened to shake the panes in the huge windows that looked out on the river and stubbornly refused to say anything to make this man feel any better. Finally he growled, “Frank,” and jerked his head toward one end of the room.
Frank Takamoto—McLain’s former gunnery sergeant, now the Colonel’s perfect butler—went to the wall at one side of the room. At his touch, a section of the handsome wood paneling slid back. Behind it was a well-appointed bar. He reached down four highball glasses and inquired Samantha’s preference with a lift of the first glass in her direction.
Samantha smiled. “Bourbon and water, please. Light.”
Frank nodded, and McLain replied “Scotch,” in a tone that plainly said he knew all along that she’d choose wrong.
“Mr. Chamberlain?” Frank’s smooth voice was a balm to the man’s lacerated nerves after the rasp of his employer’s.
With a severe look, Samantha let McLain know she expected him to follow his butler’s gracious lead.
The stoop-shouldered man on the couch looked as if Christmas had come. “Scotch, please. May I have ice?” He sounded like a child in a candy store.
“Yes, sir.” Frank answered briskly, tonging frozen cubes into the glass. “Will you have soda or water, sir?”
“Oh. Soda please.” He looked earnestly at Samantha. “I really prefer it to water, but there is absolutely no way I can keep a soda siphon from being noticed in my neighbors’ tool sheds.” He smiled nervously at his attempted joke then settled back comfortably with his highball, staring down into it with a beatific smile on his face, at peace with the world.
McLain walked over to plop in the chair nearest his unwelcome guest. “While you were out on your liquor runs, Mr. Chamberlain, did you ever notice anything unusual?”
So that’s why you asked him in for a drink! Samantha’s eyes were accusing. You weren’t making it up to him that you’d knocked him down and frightened him half out of his wits at all!
Mr. Chamberlain blushed and all his pleasure in his drink evaporated. He shot Samantha a glance as if to ask for her support. Clearly he was reluctant to answer McLain’s question. Samantha wondered why.
“Nooo,” he said slowly. “Nothing out of the ordinary.” But he didn’t meet McLain’s eyes.
Shocked, Samantha knew he was lying. He had seen something! Something he didn’t want to tell. At least not to tell McLain. She determined to ask her old friend and neighbor that question again, but not now. Not when McLain was there to intimidate him. She was sure he’d seen something, but whatever it was, Art Chamberlain wasn’t about to talk about it in front of a stranger.
Anyway, McLain was very foolish if he thought someone new to the area would immediately be taken into its confidence. Especially someone as brash as John Francis McLain—who had the added disadvantage of being from somewhere other than the South.
Samantha smiled and lifted her glass. “Cheers.”
“Yeah, cheers.” McLain responded, his tone flat.
Mr. Chamberlain emptied his glass more rapidly than he might have, and excused himself. Frank saw him out, and Samantha rose as she heard the door close behind their neighbor.
She turned to her host. “Thank you for the drink, Colonel McLain.” Her tone was frosty.
“But you didn’t approve of the fact that I didn’t fawn all over that wimp. Right?”
Samantha rounded on him. “Well, since you insist on bringing the subject up, no, I don’t approve of the way you treated poor Mr. Chamberlain. He was a guest in your home, after all. And he was here at your express invitation. Your treatment of him was nothing short of rag-mannered!” With an effort, she managed to stop there, but her eyes still flashed at him.
“He knows something.”
“That’s no excuse for you to be surly.”
“Hell, was I surly? Hmm. Okay. So I don’t like henpecked husbands. So sue me.”
Tight-lipped, Samantha turned again to go.
“Glad you could come by.”
It was the last straw. She whirled back toward him. “If you’d lived with Agnes Chamberlain for forty years, you’d be hiding vats of scotch all over town, so don’t act so blamed sanctimonious.”
McLain threw his hands up in the traditional gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay!” Then quietly, “I’ll walk you home.”
“I can walk myself home, thank you!”
“So I’ll follow you home.” His eyes glinted with amusement, daring her.
Finally, Samantha laughed.
***
First thing the next morning, Samantha went looking for Art Chamberlain. She was as certain as the Colonel that he’d been holding back last evening at McLain’s, she had every intention of finding out just what it was that he’d seen during his night prowls. Cutting through her own back yard, she arrived at the Chamberlain front door with her sneakers damp from the morning dew.
Agnes Chamberlain answered the door, perfectly groomed and smiling just as Samantha knew she would be. Habitually, Agnes rose at six, dusted and vacuumed the entire house, ran the floor polisher over the few floors that were bare, and hoped for a neighbor to drop in to share a cup of coffee for the rest of the morning.
“Come in, come in, Samantha. How wonderful it is to see you!” She was beaming. “Dear me. It’s been an age since you last had a minute for coffee with me.” As Agnes talked, Samantha pulled off her damp tennis shoes, placed them neatly side-by-side on the mat just inside the front door, then followed her hostess toward her sunny kitchen in her sock feet.
Agnes turned to ask, “Coffee or tea?”
“Coffee, please. Yours is always so good.”
Her hostess beamed, accepting the compliment. Everyone knew that Samantha usually drank tea.
They were silent for a moment, then Samantha asked, “Is Mr. Chamberlain busy this morning?” She made her question sound elaborately casual. “Perhaps he’d like to join us.”
Agnes turned away from the coffee grinder, the measure full of dark beans in her hand. “You know, it’s the oddest thing, Samantha.” She turned back to grind the coffee beans. “Arthur woke me at four-thirty this morning and said that he’d had a call from his brother and had to go to Atlanta right away.” Agnes said ‘Adlana,’ of course, as people from the area did. Almost to herself she added, “Funny the phone didn’t wake me. I must really have been tired to sleep so deeply.” She turned back to the coffee maker and poured in the ground beans.
Samantha didn’t find it a bit odd that the ring of the phone hadn’t
awakened Agnes. She was pretty sure there hadn’t been any phone call. Or, that if there had been a call, that Art Chamberlain had made it.
Dutifully, she said, “I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“Arthur didn’t know. He’ll call when he gets there, then we’ll know. How’s Laura?”
“Fine.” There was nothing odd about Agnes’s question. Everyone asked Samantha about Laura instead of asking Laura herself. It wasn’t as if Laura was standoffish, it was just that she was so busy with her yard and flower beds that no one apart from those at Garden Club got to see her . . . except Samantha.
Samantha always teased Laura that she was only best friends with her because she was her closest neighbor and it took the least time out of Laura’s gardening day to get to Samantha’s house.
“And how is little Alison? Still happy with her summer job? She surely thinks those places she’s selling are heaven on earth.”
Samantha smiled. “Yes, she does, and it’s a good thing. I can’t think of anything more onerous than trying to sell something that you’re not enthused about, can you?”
“No, and it would be especially tiresome for that nice child.” Alison was a nice child. No, Samantha corrected herself, Alison was a nice young lady, now. She was well-liked in the whole neighborhood, she always had been. Samantha was as proud as Laura that Alison was doing so well at her job. Being an honorary aunt in the true Southern tradition didn’t make feeling proud of someone difficult at all.
Then Agnes had another thought. Samantha watched as, in typical Agnes fashion she passed from one mood to another. Everybody who knew her was used to the way thoughts seemed to attack Agnes Chamberlain. Frankly, Samantha privately thought it just might be the other way around.
“I’ve been wondering about this vandal. I think it’s some kid. Probably belongs to one of the families that we’ve had move into the neighborhood lately.”
Samantha looked startled, and Agnes told her what she meant immediately. “You know—running after the almighty dollar so hard they miss out completely on the lives of their children.” She scowled fiercely. “And the poor children are usually terrors as a result.”
Samantha made an effort to get her friend to look on the cheery side of her own supposition, though. “Some of them are charming.”
“Charming!” Agnes flew off on her next tangent. “With their much-bragged-about MBA’s and not the first idea of a single social grace?” Agnes gave a snort that McLain would have envied. “All they seem to me to have is expensive taste in clothes and cars.”
Samantha smiled and murmured something incoherent. She was used to Agnes’s seemingly harsh judgments. She tolerated them like everybody else in their crowd, because she knew that in spite of her frequently scathing words Agnes had a good heart.
Hadn’t Agnes been the first to offer to baby-sit for that young wife whose spouse had been injured in a car wreck last fall? If Samantha remembered correctly, Agnes had spent the entire three weeks the young man had been in the hospital in constant attendance on his family. And unless she was very much mistaken, his children still came over regularly to ‘Aunt’ Agnes’s for cookies!
Difficult or not, Agnes was a good egg.
Pouring their steaming coffee into lovely Limoges cups that had been her great-grandmother’s occupied Agnes for a moment. When she came to the kitchen table carrying them, there was no trace of her sour mood. She smiled. “I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your column on readying the garden for spring, Samantha. It was excellent! Cream or sugar?”
“Thank you, Agnes, and no thank you.” Samantha smiled, not bothering to straighten her ‘thank-yous’ out. Agnes knew she took her coffee black. Ritual hospitality had dictated the offer of cream and sugar. “My next one’s on spring perennials.”
“Been doing anything interesting with your other flowers lately?”
“Hmmm. I’m trying for an attar of roses to give to Olivia for her birthday. She loves their scent so, and I have that one red rose that outdoes all the others for sweetness and strength of aroma. I’m hoping to bring it off all right.”
“Is it difficult? The process, I mean.”
“No, not very. It’s just that it’s my first try at it. I’ve never attempted to get oil from rose petals before. It’s a lot different from making potpourri, I can tell you.”
“I know you’ll be successful.” Agnes smiled. “Let me be the first to smell it when you finish.”
“If I finish. There’s always a chance of an awful mess.”
They laughed at that, and Agnes murmured appropriately. They drank the rest of their coffee in between inconsequential comments and friendly silence. When they’d finished their coffee and the visit, Agnes walked Samantha to the door.
As she slipped her damp tennis shoes back on, Samantha wondered just what it was that Arthur Chamberlain had seen while he tippled in the dark of night.
Obviously he’d seen something. Had it been something that had put him in such a quandary that he needed to get away? To have time to think about whether or not he should share his knowledge? She couldn’t think of any other reason for his secretive departure. He simply must have seen something. Otherwise why would he have left so unexpectedly?
Thinking back on his behavior at the Dratted Colonel’s Samantha hadn’t thought he’d seemed fearful. He’d been leery of their new neighbor before, perhaps, but not fearful.
As she walked between houses to get to her own, Samantha felt a little shiver. Whatever it was he’d seen, she sincerely hoped Arthur Chamberlain’s info wouldn’t get him in trouble.
Chapter Ten
Great heavens! It was Bridge Club Wednesday again. Samantha wondered where the week had gone. At least it had gone quietly for all its haste in passing.
There had been no more talk of the poor murdered man. The police seemed stymied. No more acts of vandalism either, and the whole Bridge group was in high spirits—even Agnes Chamberlain for a welcome and wonderful change.
“Janet is with us again today. She’s subbing for Mary.” Anne Stuart, their hostess, announced. “And we must all thank Alison for filling in for Tyler today.” She laughed a little and went on, “For which we must also thank Brenda’s Herb, who is subbing for Alison at the condos in Greenbrier.”
There was general laughter at this, then, after a murmur of appreciative greeting to the substitutes, one of the players asked, “Is Tyler all right?”
“Oh, heavens, yes. She’s fine. She just lost a filling. The dentist wanted to get it taken care of before any more damage was done. She sends her apologies.” Anne offered a tray of goodies. “I declare, Janet, I don’t see why you don’t become a regular.”
“Oh, thank you, Anne, but I can’t. Mr. Talley has too much work for me to do.”
Brenda Talley shot the blonde secretary a sharp glance. “Not more than you can handle, I hope.” Her voice was more than a little cool.
“Oh, no. The office is just busy.” Janet Wilson bent her head over the tray Anne offered, giving all her attention to selecting two pastries and letting her shoulder length hair swing forward to curtain her face.
The girl was hiding from Brenda, Samantha thought. It didn’t take a detective to see that there was considerable friction between the two women. Janet was such a beautiful young woman, and Brenda was so terribly possessive of her handsome husband. Samantha guessed it was to be expected. Knowing Herb, she knew it was unwarranted. Not only was he deeply in love with his prickly wife, he was also too busy.
For a while, though, Brenda had even been really upset with Olivia for asking Herb to hire her young cousin. Pity she wasn’t more secure in her marriage. Herb had never given his wife cause to doubt him. Never. Brenda was just . . . Brenda.
Alison must have sensed the tension, too, for she watched the two women a moment before saying, “Oh, I almost forgot. Mrs. Charles?”
Olivia Charles turned soft brown eyes her way. “Yes, dear?”
“Aunt Laura wanted me to tell you s
he’ll have those cruise pamphlets you wanted at the house this evening. I’d have brought them, but she hadn’t gotten back from town with them yet.” She threw up her hands, slapped one against her forehead and said to herself, “Duh, Alison! Right! Obviously, if your aunt had gotten back from the travel agency, you wouldn’t be here subbing for her, you dummy!”
The room erupted into laughter. Olivia jumped up and threw her arms around Alison. “Let her know that I’ll be by to pick them up early tomorrow night, please. Tell her, too, that we’re so very glad she sent you here to play.” Another hug, and she fairly twinkled at the girl. “And also tell her what fun it is to hear such a lovely, grown up young lady sound like a kid just one more time.”
They broke away to look into each other’s eyes.
Then Alison grabbed and hugged Olivia fiercely. “I love you, Mrs. Charles!”
Olivia laughed with delight. “I love you, too, Alison. We all do.”
***
Home that evening, Samantha was resting from her pleasant time at Bridge, when she was alerted by Rags’s frantic yapping. An instant later her door chimes sounded, and she answered to find McLain standing impatiently on her doorstep.
He raked her silk-clad form with his eyes. “What in hell do you call that getup?” He pushed past her into the house.
“A caftan.” She closed the door behind him. “And won’t you please come in?”
Samantha’s sarcasm was wasted on McLain. “Any coffee?” He shot the question over his shoulder as he led the way to her kitchen.
Samantha threw up her hands and followed him, muttering darkly. Rags was close on her heels, percolating. The dog was eyeing McLain’s pant legs intently.
Samantha wondered whether or not to warn him. With a faint thrill of malice, she decided not to. Instead, she asked, “Not chocolate?”
“This is business. Coffee.” McLain watched her as she began lifting down mugs and filling the pot of the coffee maker. “What did you find out?”
Murder Makes it Mine (Masters & McLain Mystery Book 1) Page 7
