Cape Cod caper

by Arnold, Margot

  "But you were interested enough in the man in the bog to go to the inquest today." Penny murmured.

  There was another dead silence as the family looked at Maria with accusing reproach. "Well, yes, I did go," she said with a toss of her black hair and a shade defiantly. "I wanted to see what was going on; I'm as curious about things as you are."

  "And how about your husband?" Penny turned to Inga. "This is your home. Was he expecting anyone who never came? Does he have any enemies?"

  It was strange to see the large woman shrink back at this, her eyes becoming wide and frightened. "Why no," she stammered, "of course not!" Then her color mounted and her eyes began to flash. "Steven have enemies? No, that is not true! Everybody loves him. It is unpardonable what you say. Why do you accuse him?"

  "I accuse no one..." Penny began, when she was interrupted.

  "Someone accusing me of what...?" Steven and Ann had come quietly back into the room. He advanced toward her with a slight smile, and this time she felt a real thrill of triumph. Unlike his brother's and sister's, Steven's teeth were not even—smaller than his father's but, nevertheless sticking out and dominating the mouth, was a wolf canine that gave his smile the same slightly sinister cast.

  Penny got up. "I'm afraid your wife misunderstood me, Mr. Dimola, and I really feel I have inflicted myself on you all for far too long." She went over to her hostess. "Thank you for a very delightful dinner and a most informative evening, Mrs. Dimola. Are you sure in the light of all this you want me underfoot? I can make other arrangements if you would rather."

  Annette took her preferred hand in her own cool one. "Believe me. Dr. Spring," she murmured softly, "I shall look forward to having you here, and 1 think it will be a very good thing—for all our sakes." And there was a wealth of meaning in her hazel eyes.

  CHAPTER 9

  Carson Grange moved like a shadow through the silent house. Room after room was subjected to the same meticulous search, drawer by drawer, closet by closet. The orange cat followed him with majestic interest, settling and watching with impassive amber eyes the large hands removing and replacing with impeccable neatness, so that all was as before. Beads of perspiration started out on the frowning brow as the search went on. Finally he stopped, looking around him in baffled puzzlement, then crossed to his uncle's desk again and opened the middle drawer which he had already searched; he slid it out and peered into the cavity behind. A small sigh of satisfaction escaped him and his groping hand withdrew a small packet of letters. Grim-faced, he read rapidly through them. "So he did keep them," he muttered through his teeth, "so they did mean something to him. Damn her, damn her to bloody hell...!"

  Dark head and fair head were close together as the New York shuttle zoomed toward its destination. "I'm frightened, Steven. What if she finds out?"

  "Finding out and proving are two different matters—you must not worry so."

  "But she's clever and I've always been terrible at hiding things."

  "I would say you hide things admirably." There was an ironic edge to his voice.

  "You don't blame me then?"

  "Blame you! Why of course not. What else could you have done in the circumstances? It should be easier now. Alexander might be a pain in some ways, but I have a lot of confidence in him. He'll take care of it—you'll see!"

  "Do you really think so? Oh, how I wish it were all over."

  "It will be. In the meantime all we can do is hang on. And wait. That's what we are both good at, isn't it? Waiting."

  "You can go now, Pina, I'll stay with him for a while." Maria waited for the door to close, then crossed to the window and threw back the curtains; sleet tapped with icy fingers against the wide windows that looked over a gray, roiling sea, but inside the room it was hot and close, and she sighed as if short of breath. She walked over to the bed and looked at the burly figure propped up in the hospital bed, his eyes closed. She took the inert hand that was lying outside the covers and gave it a little squeeze. "It's me, Poppa, Maria."

  The dark eyes so like her own slowly opened. "They're all busy now so we can have some time together. They always want to keep you in the dark about what's going on, but you don't want that, do you. Poppa? You like it when I tell you things?"

  The heavy lids blinked twice for "yes." Maria gave a little sigh. "How bored you must be lying there, but it may not be for much longer, caro. I went to the inquest yesterday, in spite of them. Do you want me to tell you about it? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

  The lids blinked again and Maria settled on the edge of the bed, still holding the large hand in her two small ones. She began to talk rapidly, bringing the scene in the courtroom to vivid life; the witnesses, the jurors, the testimony. Becoming entranced in her own storytelling, she droned on almost unaware of the dark eyes fixed on her. Her animation increased as she reached the climax of her narrative: the commotion in the courtroom, the judge-coroner pounding ineffectually away for order. "Oh, it was so funny. Poppa, you should have..." Her words died away as she looked into his face, and she gave a little moan. "Oh, Poppa, Poppa, no! What did I say? Don't cry, oh, please don't cry!"

  Annette Dimola looked with faint irritation at her stejj-daughter-in-law. Although Inga was her senior by at least a couple of years she felt years older than the sullen Valkyrie before her. "I don't see why you are so worried, Inga," she said, with as much patience as she could muster.

  '"I always worry when my Steven travels, always, until he has phoned he has arrived safely. One hears such terrible things. And when we are apart I worry about him any^way."

  "But plane is a lot safer than car travel," Annette pointed out. It was an oft-repeated formula. Privately she wondered how Steven could bear this constant motherly hovering, the overwhelming possessiveness of his blonde bride, but she had long since concluded that secretly he must enjoy it. "Anyway if you are so worried, there is no reason why you couldn't have gone with him," she added.

  "And then who would look after Poppa?" Inga demanded truculently. "I, I only, know what I am doing. What if he got worse when I was away? The rest of you are amateurs."

  Annette heaved another inward sigh. She was not at all sure she had been wise in dismissing the trained nurses. She had let herself be persuaded by Inga and ever since had been subjected to this tyranny of professionalism. With all Inga's boasted-about training, Rinaldo was not coming to as quickly as Annette had hoped or the doctors had expected. Maybe I was wrong, she thought uneasily.

  "And that woman who is here now—the one that said those bad things about Steven last night," Inga worried on, "who is she? Why must she be here? It is not good that she is here. What if she finds out about Wanda?"

  "Yes, Wanda is a problem," Annette agreed, "but one I think we can safely leave to Alexander..."

  "I've got to go to Boston today."

  "Again? Then take me with you."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, Wanda! In this weather? I wouldn't go if I didn't have to."

  "And you'll be gone overnight, I suppose?"

  "And what's that supposed to mean?"

  "You know damn well what I mean."

  "Honestly, I don't know what's got into you. You never used to be like this. You're so strung out we can't seem to say a civil word to one another anymore. For the thousandth time, what's bugging you?"

  "Oh, everything. This damn mausoleum, your father lying up there like a zombie, your beloved family. I can't take it anymore. Why can't I go back home to Weliesley? There's nothing I can do here, and I never get to see you anyway, you're so damn occupied."

  Alexander Dimola sighed wearily. "We've been over this same ground so many times. You know you can't stay in Weliesley by yourself, it's too dangerous. I have to stay here till we know which way it's going with father and till this latest mess is cleared up. Believe me, I'm sorry we can't have more time together, but I thought you'd at least understand that I'm carrying a double load just now and I have to keep an eye for and on Steven. If you're sick, as you keep saying, for God'
s sake see a doctor and stop pumping yourself full of this home remedy crap. Wanda, I'm almost at my wit's end—don't push me!"

  "Ail right, all right!" She came very close to him, the beautiful face infinitely appealing, the exotic scent she wore reaching out to his senses. "I'll go and see a doctor. Take me to Boston and I'll go and see a doctor. Only get me out of here, or I swear I'll do something desperate!"

  His shoulders slumped. "Very well," he said in a dull voice, "you win!"

  Penny was looking out at her own gray seascape from the large window of her guest bedroom. She was still a little bemused by the opulence of her surroundings and the exotic quality of the house, which was so alien to its setting. It stood on the seaward tip of a small isthmus formed by an inlet of the bay on one side and salt marsh on the other. At the narrowest part of the isthmus a high steel fence of ornamental spikes closed in the house from the rest of the estate. In the middle of the fence was an equally substantial wrought iron gate operated by an electric eye from the house; that, and several guard dogs she had seen flitting like dark shadows around the grounds, appeared to be the Dimolas' only security measures. She had seen no security guards, no mention had been made of a bodyguard—all of which seemed to support Alexander's statement of the night before that his father was not fearful of retribution from enemies. Indeed, considering the violent climate of the times, the Dimolas seemed almost nonchalant about their personal security.

  The house itself reflected the same thing. Approaching from the landward side it was formidable and alien: an improbable concoction of stone and stucco looking for all the world like a fortified medieval Tuscan farmhouse of gargantuan proportions. But on the seaward side it was mostly windows: huge acreages of sliding glass that made it almost part of the sea and sand and filled it with their dancing light. It must cost a fortune to heat, she was thinking practically, when the door opened quietly and Annette came in. "I just wanted to see if you have everything you want, Dr. Spring, or if there is anything I can do for you."

  "Everything is just fine, Mrs. Dimola. But there is something you can do for me. Won't you come in and sit down for a while?"

  They settled in two easy chairs grouped around a small table at the window, and Annette looked enquiringly at Penny, who said, without preamble, "The most valuable thing you can do for me at the moment is to talk. Tell me about your husband, for I am convinced that in him lies the key to all this."

  Annette sketched a helpless little gesture in the air. "I wouldn't know where to begin. What is it you want to know?"

  "Anything, everything. Say whatever is meaningful to you about him."

  Animation crept into the impassive face. "To me he is the most remarkable man in the whole world. He is so involved with life. Not in a materialistic way as you might think from his financial success, but in a responsible way: integrity, courage, devotion to friends and his family which almost goes beyond the bounds of reason—all of this is Rinaldo and so much, much more..." She broke off and shook her head vexedly. "Oh, I'm afraid this isn't any good ... how can I make you see? Well, just to give you one instance: the accident that crippled Zeb—a runaway bulldozer that started a gravel slide. I expect you know about that. My father, who was an architect for Rinaldo, was killed in the same accident. Rinaldo managed to pull Zeb free, and when they got to him he was also trying like a madman to lift the bulldozer off my father by brute strength. But it didn't end there—oh my, no! Not only did he take care of all the material needs of Zeb and my mother but he went much further than that. To me he was like a devoted father..." Penny wondered if she realized how revealing that statement was as she rushed on. "No matter how busy he was he always had time to come to school plays and things like that—oh, anything that was important to me as a child. And when my mother died when I was in my first year of college, and I was so broken up—we were always a terribly close family—he had me come to live with his family on all the vacations. When his first wife died not too long after my mother, I could hardly believe my good fortune when he asked me to marry him, because by that time I would have gone through hell and high water for him..." She stopped and gazed almost with defiance at Penny.

  "In his business there must be a lot of industrial accidents," Penny said mildly. "Is he that concerned about all of them?"

  "Certainly—if the family is involved," Annette said hotly, then bit her lip, as if she had said too much.

  "I don't understand. How was the family involved in, say, Zeb's accident?"

  Annette looked away from her out over the gray seascape. "The boys were at the site that day, and one of the workmen said he'd seen them playing around the bulldozer; one of them might have accidentally started it."

  "I see. Any idea which?" Penny asked. Annette shook her head and continued to gaze out the window. Penny looked at her thoughtfully. A close family and her father dead, possibly at the hands of a Dimola—cause for a deep-seated grudge, perhaps even a subconscious one, against the Dimolas? Perhaps even a grudge against Zeb for being alive while her father was dead? She wondered if Annette was really as impassive and collected as she seemed. A glance at her watch told her she had not much time left before her rendezvous with Carson Grange at the cottage, so she hurried on to the next objective. "I understand your husband changed in himself and in his mode of life a couple of years ago. Can you clarify that a bit for me. Was there a definite starting point for this change or did it come on slowly?"

  Annette took a minute before answering. "Yes, I think there was a starting point. It was when Steven had got his father all fired up about the family history and genealogy. We all went to Italy that summer. I remember Rinaldo was as enthusfastic as a small boy. He had served in Italy during the war and had stayed in the place that Steven had discovered was the original home of the family, it's in the north, I believe. He and Steven and Inga went off. I stayed in Rome with Maria to do some shopping and sight-seeing. I blame myself for that now, but World War II was before I was even born, so I really was not interested in seeing old battlefields and so on. Steven and Inga came back without him and said he had decided to stay on for a few days looking around Imola. They went off again and Alexander and Wanda came back about the same time..." "They were on the trip too?" Penny interjected. "Yes, but not with us. They had gone off to visit some of Wanda's relatives." Seeing the surprise on Penny's face, Annette smiled faintly. "Yes, Wanda is a second-generation Italian-American. She doesn't look it, does she? Anyway, when Rinaldo got back, well, he was all closed in on himself. He rushed us back home and from that time on seemed totally uninterested in the family history."

  "Did he say anything? Give you any indication of why this was so?"

  Annette shook her head. "No, I felt that revisiting the old places had stirred up unpleasant memories—Rinaldo had had a very hard time in the war. He was wounded and captured and they treated him very badly. I blamed myself very much for not going with him and I tried to get him to talk about it, but he never would."

  Penny gave another hasty glance at her watch. "One last thing before I have to go. Do you think I could see your husband's study? Ann told me it is very remarkable."

  Annette looked surprised. "Why of course. Please feel free to wander about the house as you please. But I'll take you there now."

  It was just as Ann had described it. Across the threshold Penny had stepped back into the Renaissance. It was a library that would have graced a ducal palace: the dark paneling, the tapestry hangings, even an ancient heavy globe standing by the great black carved desk and its matching chair. An oil painting of a somber-faced Rinaldo was the only modern thing in the room—or, at least that was Penny's first impression. Then she noticed a framed photograph on the window wall and crossed over for a closer look. It showed a stem-faced young Rinaldo with a group of soldiers, leaning against a half-track truck; behind there were cypresses and a typical Italian "torre" half obscured by the trees. Leaning closer she could make out the faint inscription—"Colle d'Imola. June 1944."

&n
bsp; "That was my husband's platoon," Annette's voice came from behind her. "They are all dead now but Rinaldo."

  CHAPTER 10

  It had been on the tip of Penny's tongue to ask Annette for a copy of the picture, but she had thought better of it. There was another source she could try before showing her hand to the Dimola family. Like it or not, Toby would have to come in on this, she thought, as she hurried off to keep her appointment with Carson Grange. Toby was Johnny-on-the-spot and it would not hurt him to do a bit of detecting on her behalf; in fact it would serve him right for being so bloody-minded about coming with her.

  She arrived late to find Carson pacing up and down before the closed cottage like a hungry cougar. "Where is everybody?" he asked querulously. "I was just about to give you all up as a bad job."

  "Ann's had to go off on business, so I've moved up to the main house," Penny explained. "Sorry to be late."

  "And Where's little Penelope?" Carson went on, nursing his grievance. "Don't say she's carted the poor kid off too."

  "No. She's staying in Masuit with the woman who babysits her normally."

  His face fell. "So I won't see her."

  "Not this time around, I'm afraid." She looked at him with interest. "You're very fond of children, aren't you?"

  "They're a damn sight more interesting than adults," he agreed grumpily. "So what now?"

  "Well, two main things. Could we first go to your uncle's house? I'm very keen to see if he has any photograph albums of the Dimola family. There's one particular one I'm after and I'd like to borrow it."

  "He's got photos all right," Carson said, "but if you're looking for a duplicate of the one that's been stolen you're out of luck. I thought of that already and went through them yesterday."

  "No, not that one, an earlier one," she said, but did not elaborate.