No Way To Kill A Lady

by Nancy Martin

  I said, “Let us through, please. Can’t you see there’s no need to stop these people?”

  “We don’t do no racial profiling,” said the wise guy in the tracksuit. He handed the white box back to Sutherland. “Here you go, buddy. You could use a little more meat on those scrawny bones.”

  The ragtag security team stepped back and let us get into the Porsche without further bodily inspection. Sutherland drove up the drive with the cheesecake in his lap.

  “What on earth is going on here today?” he asked in wonderment. “First I’m manhandled by the teamsters union. Now I see you’ve got a dozen hysterical little girls running all over the lawn. Their parents look like fashion models.”

  “It’s Emma’s pony class. Except today Emma is—well, she’s been detained, so we may have to vamp for a little while.”

  “Vamp?”

  “Can you saddle a pony?”

  “Me? Nora, remember who you’re talking to!”

  “Well, go schmooze with the parents.”

  “I can do that.”

  At the back of the house, it was mayhem. More of Emma’s students were climbing on the fence, shrieking with excitement and sending the ponies into a stampede around the pasture. Their surly parents stood nearby looking as furious as only entitled rich parents can do when their children have not been properly attended to.

  I figured if I needed to catch ponies in the pasture, I’d better go find my boots, so I dashed for the house. Near the back porch I found the young man from the grocery store bakery—the one who had proposed to Emma in the checkout line. He stood nervously at the foot of the steps. From the back porch, Ralphie glowered threateningly at Brian and pawed the porch floor with his hoof. His message was clear. Stay off my turf, Bub.

  Brian took off his hat to me. In his other shaking hand, he carried a small shopping bag with a jewelry store’s logo on the side. He looked even younger than he had yesterday. His face was pink—as if he’d scrubbed it extra hard this morning to make a good impression.

  “Uh, hi,” he said. “Is Emma home?”

  “Not at the moment. It’s Brian, isn’t it? We’re a little chaotic here right now. Would you like to come back later?”

  Brian blushed and stammered, and generally looked to be deeply in love.

  Poor, misguided boy. I couldn’t stop myself from giving him a hug.

  Sutherland strolled up the sidewalk and gave Brian a knowing look as the boy climbed into his battered little car to leave.

  Still holding the pastry box, Sutherland gestured at the house. “The old place looks a little worse for wear, Nora. Has a tornado blown through?”

  “There’s no place like home,” I said, shooing Ralphie off the porch.

  “Is that young man your boyfriend?”

  “This isn’t exactly the time for— Look, I’ll get my boots and be right back. Here, give me that box. I’ll put it in the kitchen. Meanwhile, make yourself useful, please!”

  The doorknob came off in my hand again. Barely containing a shriek of frustration, I gave it to Sutherland and shoved the door open with my shoulder. In the kitchen, I plunked the box on the table, exchanged my shoes for my rubber gardening boots and my jacket for the mackintosh I kept on a peg by the door.

  Michael stuck his head around the pantry door, Max in one arm and a cell phone in the other hand. “Everything okay? It sounds like a riot out there.”

  “A riot would be easier to subdue.”

  “You’re all pink. What can I do? I’ll be off the phone in a couple of minutes.”

  “You’ve got Max to look after, so stay inside. I don’t want either one of you getting trampled.”

  Back outside, I nearly collided with Libby.

  “Half the ponies are loose!” she cried. “And that pig of yours chased that poor boy’s car all the way down the driveway. He barely escaped!”

  At that moment, Ralphie charged past us toward the annoyed parents. They had gathered beneath the oak trees as if planning to storm the house to demand their money back. As soon as they saw Ralphie heading their way, they scattered like bowling pins.

  Their screams seemed to inflame Ralphie’s tantrum. He cut one father out of the herd and chased him all the way to the pasture fence, where the father leaped over the rails to safety, but landed in an unfortunately fresh pile of pony droppings. His outraged cry was drowned out only by the high-pitched shriek of another father who had become Ralphie’s next target. As Ralphie bore down on him, snorting like a maddened bull, the man sprinted past us, heading for the springhouse.

  “Be careful!” I shouted. “That’s not a safe—”

  Before I could warn him, the father leaped for the springhouse roof. He scrabbled for an instant, then grabbed the gutter and hung on for dear life, with his knobby knees pulled up to his chest to avoid getting head-butted by Ralphie. But the weakened gutter immediately began to sag under his weight, and inexorably, he started to droop lower and lower—perilously closer to Ralphie’s waiting tusks.

  “Help! Help me!”

  Sutherland said, “I know a suicide mission when I see one.”

  “Ralphie!” I shouted.

  The pig turned toward me. He had a maniacal gleam in his little piggy eyes. I could have sworn he was laughing.

  But the laughter was actually coming from Michael’s security detail, who had all come up the driveway and were watching the action as if they were spectators at a sporting event. They were definitely cheering for the pig.

  I ran toward Ralphie. “Stop that!” I shouted at him. “Get back in the pasture!”

  “Somebody open the gate!” Libby bellowed. “We’ll herd him back inside!”

  But Ralphie dashed the opposite way. And as soon as the most intrepid of the little girls swung the pasture gate open, four more ponies galloped out and took off in four different directions. A herd of preteen girls chased them, shrieking at decibels that nearly punctured my eardrums.

  Ralphie took off in hot pursuit, making a horrible noise that almost everyone understood to be growls of menace, but I was absolutely sure were grunts of glee. Michael’s men cheered as Ralphie barely missed goring Sutherland, who leaped for the safety of the tire swing in the knick of time. Sutherland grabbed the rope, jammed one tasseled loafer into the tire and was immediately flipped upside down with one leg hopelessly tangled.

  “Help! Cuz!”

  “Need a push, Poindexter?” shouted one of the wiseguys, and they all doubled over with laughter.

  I abandoned Sutherland to his fate and ran into the barn. I came out with the lure I had seen Emma use—a pan full of oats. I rattled the oats around in the pan, and the ponies immediately came running. While they bullied one another to get a mouthful of oats, Libby waded through them and started snapping leads on halters. My toes were stepped on, but within a few more minutes we had the ponies under control.

  By then, Ralphie had all the parents cornered around the springhouse. I decided he was doing me a favor and left them there.

  We were tying ponies to a fence and starting to put saddles on them when the police cruiser arrived in the back driveway. Michael’s hoodlums magically disappeared.

  Deputy Foley stepped out of the police car. “Miss Blackbird? We got a 911 call. Something about disturbing the peace?”

  I made an effort to look innocent. “Really? I can’t imagine who might have called.”

  Foley took a look at Sutherland, still hanging desperately from the tire swing, and the pony-lesson parents cowering by the springhouse. Ralphie appeared to be taking a nap nearby, although I could see his beady eye keeping watch on his captives. He looked like a kid who’d had too much Christmas. None of these sights caused Foley to pull his sidearm, which I took as a good sign.

  He squinted in Sutherland’s direction. “Does that guy need some help?”

  “My cousin? Well, maybe. If you wouldn’t mind . . . ?”

  Foley ambled over to assist Sutherland, and I could hear Sutherland squawking about some minor inj
ury. Foley very kindly helped him down from the tire swing and bent to examine Sutherland’s ankle. Within a few minutes they disappeared into the house together.

  Libby took over the pony lessons, for which I could have kissed her. With her natural motherly authority, she soon had the little girls trotting around the paddock in an orderly fashion, and they took turns jumping the ponies over fence rails laid on the ground. Even Ralphie lumbered over to watch at the fence, and soon the parents ventured over to observe, too. Everyone seemed happy, if a little flushed from the earlier excitement.

  Two hours later, happy parents had packed their children into vehicles and departed. Libby, exhausted but pleased, took possession of her son, then climbed into her minivan and left. The ponies rolled in their pasture.

  In all the pandemonium, I hadn’t noticed when Deputy Foley pulled away. Or when Sutherland took his leave—before I had a chance to question him further about Aunt Madeleine.

  But when I went into the house, I discovered Ralphie in the kitchen with his snout buried in cheesecake. When I screamed, he lifted his head from the pastry box. He had a cherry stuck in one nostril.

  I chased him out of the house and slammed the door. Then I sat at the table and tried to decide whether to laugh or cry.

  That’s when I noticed that Aunt Madeleine’s ledger was missing.

  Someone had stolen it from the kitchen table.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I went upstairs and took a long, restorative shower.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, Michael had come upstairs. He’d been unaware of all the action that took place while he was handling some kind of gasoline crisis on the telephone. He relaxed on the bed while I dressed to go out for the night and told him what had happened that afternoon.

  He said, “I missed my chance to meet your slippery cousin, huh?”

  “You didn’t miss much,” I said. “He spent most of his time cowering in terror of your pig. If you plan on keeping that animal as some kind of team mascot, by the way, I wonder if there’s such a thing as a pig obedience class?”

  “Ralphie behaves himself for me.”

  “Why is that?” I demanded. “With everyone else, he’s a perfect—”

  “Pig?” Michael suggested. “You can’t expect a pig to be anything but a pig, Nora. Obedience class is just going to give you indigestion. Him, too.”

  “Speaking of pigs,” I said, sitting down at the vanity mirror, “Emma learned some interesting things about Simon Groatley last night.” I told Michael about Hart’s information that Groatley had fleeced a comatose client and was likely living on cash he’d stashed in a safe-deposit box.

  “So the list of charges against Groatley gets longer and longer,” Michael said as I applied my makeup. “You think maybe he killed your aunt to get easy access to her dough? Or was it your cousin who did that? It would have been pretty simple to close an elevator door and walk away. No muss, no fuss. You don’t have to be a violent person to commit that kind of crime.”

  “Thing is, Groatley is probably capable of violence,” I said, tapping my mascara tube thoughtfully on my thigh. “If you tangle with Emma, you have to be sure of yourself. But you’re right. Turning off the electricity is a way to kill somebody without getting blood on your hands. Nonviolent is more Sutherland’s style.”

  “You think he’s capable of leaving his stepmother to die?”

  “Twenty years ago he might have been.”

  Michael had been admiring my bare thigh, but he said, “What did you learn from Foxy Galore? Did she think Madeleine was a madam? Maybe with dissatisfied clients who wanted her dead?”

  “No, Foxy had never heard of Madeleine. I’m back to thinking the ledger wasn’t a record of prostitution. I shouldn’t have doubted Madeleine. It must mean something else. I don’t know what, though. And now somebody has stolen the book, so I’ll have to come up with another way to figure it out.” I sighed and touched up my eyelashes with care.

  “I must have been upstairs changing Max’s diaper when it was stolen,” Michael said. He’d already listened to me rant about the missing ledger. “I didn’t hear anybody in the house. Sorry.”

  “Only two people could have stolen the ledger. Sutherland and Libby’s Deputy Foley. And my money’s on Sutherland. He’s been quite the sneaky customer since he arrived.”

  “Want me to send somebody to get the ledger back from him?” Michael grinned. “I’ve been looking for something to occupy my crew.”

  “Although I agree they need a constructive distraction, he’d probably die of fright,” I said. “I don’t want that on my conscience.”

  Michael shrugged. “Have it your way. Too bad Foxy turned out to be a wild-goose chase. I figured she might be able to help.”

  “Actually, I found someone else at Shady Rest, so it was hardly a wasted trip. Vincente van Vincent lives there now.”

  I told Michael about Shirley’s husband, ill with Alzheimer’s and fading fast.

  “He was a respected diplomat back in his prime,” I said. “A friend of Madeleine’s. Or a kind of colleague. I saw some old photos that included her, but he wasn’t able to tell me anything.” I sat still for a moment, picturing Vincente in his solitary room. “Michael, when we get old, we’ll live together no matter what, okay? I can’t stand the thought of you as alone as he was.”

  He smiled. “Neither one of us is going to be alone.”

  I set aside my mascara and put a finishing touch of powder on my nose before brushing out my hair. Michael was amused, but I’d meant every word.

  “Where are you going tonight?” He reclined on the bedclothes, long legs crossed comfortably and arms folded behind his head. Only the steady gleam in his otherwise lazy eyes gave away his real mood. I had been sitting at the mirror in my new panties with a towel lightly wrapped around my body, and although he hadn’t said a word, I knew he’d been eyeing my new pink underwear. If we’d had enough time, I knew we wouldn’t be talking. He said, “Are you headed to a charity ball to save the whales or something?”

  “We’re saving a hospital this evening.” I gave my hair a little spritz of spray and checked my reflection in the angled mirror of my dressing table. Not bad.

  I wanted to forget it all and climb into bed, though, and let him slip off my pink panties. Another night under the covers with Michael was very appealing. But I had work to do.

  Reluctantly, I left my towel on the chair and went into the closet. I had thought long and hard about which item to wear this evening, and I’d spent a few hard-earned dollars to have it altered to fit me just right. I pulled Grandmama’s favorite David Roth off the hanger and stepped into it. Wriggling, I drew it up and went out into the bedroom. “Will you zip me, please?”

  The dress started with a golden beaded bodice deeply cut into a sweetheart neckline that made a feature of my white shoulders and naked throat. The gracefully curved bodice displayed a coy hint of cleavage—no bra tonight—and cinched my waist tight. At the hip, Roth had designed a clever detail of teardrop prisms hanging every two inches on gold threads. The skirt was yards and yards of peach-hued chiffon, with a tea-length hem that fell slimly from my hips to curl coquettishly upward at the bottom. Layers of successively paler blond chiffon flashed beneath the upturned hem. I did a pirouette, sending the skirt into a swirl.

  “Are you testing my self-control?” Michael sat up and pulled me onto his lap, careful not to crush the dress. Despite being a tough guy whose closet contained little more than jeans and T-shirts and black leather, Michael was turned on fast by a touch of lace and lipstick. Add ladylike underwear, and he was like a teenager with his first naughty magazine.

  Somehow he managed to slowly zip up my dress while nibbling my neck.

  I slipped my arms around his shoulders and began to think seriously about skipping the hospital fund-raiser. In his ear, I whispered what I wanted most to do just then, and he slid one hand underneath my skirt to trace a long, seductive trail up my thigh.

  The do
orbell gonged downstairs, and we looked at each other with dismay.

  “Now what?” Michael asked, barely holding back his frustration.

  “Maybe it’s Sutherland,” I said. “Maybe he brought back Aunt Madeleine’s book. Maybe he’s willing to start telling the truth.”

  Michael helped me gently off his lap. “I’ll take care of the door. I want to get a look at this guy, anyway.”

  “Don’t scare him,” I called as Michael went out into the hallway. “At least, don’t scare him too much.”

  He laughed and went down the staircase.

  At the bottom of my meager jewelry box, I found a pair of diamond earrings—a Valentine’s Day gift from Todd back in the good days. I hadn’t been emotionally able to wear any of the gifts he’d given me before he started spending money on drugs—not that many pieces were left that he hadn’t stolen out of my jewelry box and sold for coke. Or that I had sold to pay the taxes on Blackbird Farm. Looking at myself in the mirror, I decided the moment in the woods with the bones felt cathartic. Maybe I was finally putting the past behind me. I slipped the earrings on and smiled at my reflection. I thought Todd would have been happy to see me wear them again.

  I went back into the closet to find a wrap warm enough to see me through the evening. I pulled out a cashmere stole designed with interlocking loops of tiny glass beads.

  I stepped into my tan satin Jimmy Choos and went down the stairs with the wrap over my arm.

  In the entry hall, I discovered our visitor wasn’t Sutherland at all.

  It was Carrie.

  She had a sullen set to her jaw, but she couldn’t help glancing around the house with open curiosity.

  “This place is a wreck,” she was saying as I came down the staircase. “I thought you guys were rich.”

  “Not for generations,” I replied. “Hello. It’s nice to see you again.”

  She gave my outfit a long stare, taking in the flirty skirt and the diamonds in my ears, too, and clearly concluding I was lying to her. She said, “Where are you going? To some kind of prom?”