All in One Piece

by Cecelia Tishy

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Tires crunch outdoors, and footsteps approach the sun parlor. “Margaret, my dear—and you must be Ms. Cutter. I’m Leonard Vogler.”

  His sandy hair has receded, but I recognize the red-neckerchief man in the tennis photos. He is ruddy complexioned, about six feet, with watery blue eyes. His club tie is loosened and crooked, and his pinstripe suit padded. He shakes hands with a little twist, as if for a backhand shot. His bright yellow suspenders are patterned with chickens wearing spurs… no, they’re fighting cocks.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Vogler.”

  “Make it ‘Leonard.’” From my shoe tops up, he surveys each item of my clothing and my pearls.

  Margaret has unclipped her hair, which falls loose to her shoulders. “What can we get you, dear?”

  “I’ll grab a bourbon. Join me, Ms. Cutter?”

  “It’s ‘Regina,’ please. And no thank you.” I know better than to defect from ladies’ tea. In moments, drink in hand, he jams his body into a wicker chair and swirls the ice in a hefty slug of whiskey. “Dreary day. Lousy fall. His ice rattles so hard two cubes fly out. Fumbling, he drops them into a decorative Ming bowl. “Margaret and I were scheduled for Sea Island this month. Had to cancel.”

  So Margaret is not too housebound to travel. “Coastal Georgia,” I say, “is lovely at this time of year. But I’m afraid we’ve made only modest progress in planning Steven’s memorial service. We’ve selected some photographs. Mostly we’ve been talking informally.”

  “It’s my fault,” Margaret says. She blinks rapidly. Or is she batting her eyes at her husband?

  “My late aunt had a connection with All Souls Church,” I say, “and I’m acquainted with the minister there—unless Steven had an affiliation elsewhere?”

  “Steven didn’t…” Now Margaret’s eyes are fixed on Leonard’s face. “Steven was uncertain about his spiritual path.” The two exchange glances.

  “I’ll get in touch with All Souls. But I’ll need a list of Steven’s coworkers.”

  “No problem.” Vogler snaps a suspender. Spurs flashing, the cocks bulge and shrink. “We can circulate the announcement.”

  “And will your family take part—your son, Andrew? Your daughter?”

  “Drew, yes. I’ll have him contact you. Dani’ll sing. My daughter has had extensive voice training.”

  “Very nice,” I say. “And Steven’s friends outside of work? How can I reach them?”

  “That’s more complicated.” Suddenly both Voglers look ill at ease, though perhaps for different reasons. Margaret is doubtless thinking of Alex Ribideau. Vogler? Who knows?

  “Perhaps Andrew and Danielle could help us,” I say.

  “Steven’s new friends in recent years,” says Margaret, “we wouldn’t know them. I doubt Dani or Drew do.”

  Vogler drinks. “To be blunt, Steven had friends in the gay community.”

  “The family loved him all the same,” says Margaret. Leonard frowns. She rolls her shoulders and peers from the sunporch windows into the darkening gray. She says, “We are equal in God’s eyes.”

  “Discrimination is illegal,” says Vogler. “I couldn’t be a bigot and run a business, not these days.”

  So Leonard Vogler dislikes his protégé “son” being gay. And he’s probably unaware that his wife introduced him to his longtime partner.

  “We are open-minded,” says Margaret. “My husband did the right thing for Steven no matter what.”

  “Margaret my dear, here’s the right thing: Dani’s found a glass man to work on the greenhouse. Forgive this, Regina, but my wife needs a ray of sunshine. You see, we’ve plunged into a new phase of life. Last March we moved lock, stock, and barrel into this historic Crowninshed estate without a minute’s hesitation because we saw the possibilities. We decided country living was just the ticket for good health. Isn’t that right, dear?” Margaret manages a wan smile. “You said it so cleverly, my dear. Your turn of phrase about the house, what was it?”

  “Good bones,” says Margaret dutifully. “I said the house has good bones.”

  “Right, but the whole property cried out for restoration. Why, we’re practically homesteaders. I’m a western boy, you see. I’m from Nevada. But Margaret’s old family home here is our latest project. Eventually Crowninshed will be a premier showplace. It’s our new adventure.”

  Margaret gives him a gaze of forbearance.

  “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance. The place will be back to its old glory days. This is the house that hardware built, Regina. Does the name Crowninshed ring a bell? Think hardware.”

  “Hardware?”

  “That’s Margaret’s family on her mother’s side, and it goes way back in history. Why, Crowninshed picks and shovels were on-site at the gold rush. America’s victory gardens were spaded with Crowninshed tools during World War II. Today the company’s smaller, and while it might not sound glamorous, such things as staples and nail guns…”

  “Nails. Did you say nails?”

  “Family reunions with Margaret’s folks, all you hear is sixtypenny nails, ring nails, spiral nails. And the crown jewel, the Crowninshed nail guns. All patented.”

  These words flash like bloodred neon. Steven’s body, his nailed skin. Leonard Vogler is still talking. Margaret gives a little shudder as from a chill in the sunless sunporch. I manage to ask, “I’m curious. Is a nail gun like a real gun?”

  “It speeds up the work tenfold,” Leonard says. “Pam, pam, pam. Shingles, boards, shoots those suckers like no tomorrow.” Margaret folds her arms as the afternoon darkens to dusk. No one has turned on a lamp. “So now we’re on the prowl for craftsmen, woodworkers, a team of landscape architects.” He reaches to pat his wife’s knee, misses, and knocks over the cane. One sock bunches at his ankle. Awkward man.

  I resolve to sit here till I learn when Steven last saw Leonard and Margaret Vogler, and till the three of us acknowledge his murder. The cane is back at Margaret’s side. Vogler’s necktie has flipped backward. He doesn’t notice. “I just wondered,” I say, “whether Steven was here shortly before he was killed.”

  They stare, soundless, at the word “killed.” The clock chimes the half hour. Wrong time, wrong timing. I relent. “You must have provided such a home to him.”

  “The Lawrence years, Regina, were decisive.”

  Try another angle. “Steven must have been terribly interested in your new-home project. Maybe he had one of the Crowninshed nail guns?”

  Vogler’s booming laugh is startling. “Steven,” he says, “had absolutely no aptitude in that direction. You see, he was destined for a different future.”

  “For Corsair Financial?”

  “For thoroughbred racing.”

  It’s my turn to stop and stare. Vogler says, “As a business, Regina. I formed a partnership to develop a track and a racing season near Nashua, New Hampshire. There’s nothing in this world like thoroughbreds. Businesses come and go, but racing gets in your blood.”

  “And Steven was part of the plan?”

  Vogler clears his throat. “Why, yes, the fact is, the boy’s size seemed a sure shot.”

  “His smallness, Regina, as you saw in the albums.”

  “He was horse crazy too. Jockeys are trained in a system of apprenticeship, you see.”

  “Jockeys? So Steven was going to be a jockey?”

  “A native son of Lawrence, think of the publicity for the Vogler Stable right here in New England.”

  “Until he grew. The growth spurt took everyone by surprise.”

  “The shoe size fooled us. We guessed he’d top out at about a hundred, hundred and a quarter.”

  “But then, Regina, Leonard did the right thing.”

  “Absolutely right thing.” Leonard and Margaret together, a portrait of righteousness.

  “You continued to help him after he grew too large to be a jockey?”

  “We kept him in the bosom of the family. Fixed his teeth. Saw to the scholarships. The wh
ole package.” Vogler snaps the fighting cocks. “Even when our interests shifted, when we backed off from racing and leased the bogs.”

  “Cranberries, Regina.”

  “Nothing says New England like cranberries, but our bogs were in Wisconsin. It was quite a commute.”

  “With Cape Cod bogland so dear, you see.”

  “And if the market hadn’t… I mean, if crop yields had just been a point or two higher in those years, why, Ocean Spray would be our middle name.” He makes a pudgy fist.

  I look from one to the other. Vogler’s business schemes over the years—were they financed by Corsair? By his first wife’s money? Or Margaret’s?

  “Regina, if you know of artisans, don’t hesitate. We’ll soon make history in the restoration of Crowninshed Farms. The area will be buzzing with construction. Our own home deserves only the finest craftsmen.” He thumbs the suspenders. The cocks leap.

  Margaret bunches the hem of her dress against her knees. She gives Leonard a half-lidded gaze and says, “Steven was here on August third for dinner. It was my birthday. Drew and Dani came. We had fireworks. It was a lovely evening. Would you care for more tea, Regina?”

  It’s my cue. “Thanks, but I must go. I’m just wondering, is there anyone else to be contacted?”

  Margaret wets her lips and hesitates. Vogler straightens his tie, clears his throat. They exchange glances.

  “Anyone at all? Or perhaps I might ask Andrew and Danielle.”

  Margaret says, “Perhaps…” Her voice trails.

  Leonard snaps down his glass. “What’s the point?”

  “For Drew and Dani’s sake.”

  “What about us?”

  “Leonard dear…”

  They go back and forth until he says, “Margaret, if you must.”

  She clears her throat and says, “This is awkward, Regina, but you’ll want to be in touch with Eleanor.”

  “Eleanor—?”

  “Comber. Formerly Vogler.”

  “A relative?”

  Vogler grunts.

  With eyes closed, Margaret says, “Eleanor was Leonard’s first wife. She’s the mother of Drew and Danielle. You’ll find her at Flint Ridge Trace. That’s in Hamilton, here on the North Shore.”

  We rise, Margaret with her cane, me with this sudden bombshell. We recap plans for the service and promise to stay in touch, as if Leonard’s ex has not ruptured the moment. I gather the photographs, and Leonard walks me out and points to the weedy fields to be landscaped in the spring, he boasts, with a pond and trout stream to boot. He flicks his wrist as if fly casting, pausing at the collapsed woodpile to ask whether I have a fireplace, then to insist on loading an armful of wood into my trunk for the winter. “It’s apple, nature’s very best firewood—a lesson learned from a little business venture in wood some years ago.”

  This very next moment happened so fast I can’t be sure. Maybe signals got crossed. Maybe. Here’s how it goes in replay. The applewood is loaded in, and I reach to close my trunk, my fingers extended—then feel a sharp current of air, yank back my hand just as Vogler bangs the trunk hatch down. It’s nanoseconds and microns from a smash.

  “Oh my goodness,” Vogler says, “we nearly hit your hand. Your wrist, your poor fingers. Why, we could have done some real damage.” He shakes his head and snaps one suspender. “Oh, you’d have surgical pins and a metal plate, Regina. You’d have physical therapy for a very long time. You must be careful.”

  A blackbird circles overhead and drops a greenish splotch.

  “We wouldn’t for the world want to see you hurt, Regina, not when you’re so kind and helpful. Why, my Margaret would feel terrible. If anything happened, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself. You take care, now. We want you healthy. We want you all in one piece.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Come anytime,” said Eleanor Comber of Flint Ridge Trace when I phoned to introduce myself. “Anytime,” she said in a whiskey voice when I spoke Steven Damelin’s name. “Anytime at all.”

  Which is universal for never.

  “This very afternoon,” I shot back, and what could she say? In heavy gabardines and loafers, I pass the old stone walls and dark-stained fences of the horse farms on Boston’s North Shore—White Gables, Heatherstone, Hawk’s Nest. It’s turned sunny, and fallen leaves carpet the fields in brown, though a few maples shimmer red and gold.

  The entrance gates to Flint Ridge Trace are open wide, but the stone cairns that flank the gates bring me to a dead stop. Literally I brake, lower my window, and stare. Each cairn is topped by a stone pineapple.

  I’m spooked. Of course I am. My door marks, that Chinese grocer and dictionary and exchange with Hugh Lee… here’s the pineapple, the traditional symbol of welcome. Decoratively speaking, it’s everywhere from mailboxes to cheese spreaders. But maybe this is different. Maybe the motif is a code. A sign just inside the gate reads “5 mph,” and I take it personally: proceed with caution, Reggie.

  The gravel roadway leads past a white Federal house and gray barn with a low roofline to a parking area with two Suburbans and a truck. Outside, I hear a whinny, thudding hooves, and in the distance, an engine. It smells of hay and horses. In a far ring, a rider exercises a tawny horse.

  “Hello.” A tall woman, late thirties, in denim and boots greets me, her thick dark hair tied back, face tanned, eyes sea blue. “You must be Regina. I’m Vicky. I’m a trainer. You might not want to shake hands, I’m dusty from currycombs.”

  I shake firmly.

  “Eleanor will be with you. Come in.”

  So this is a horse barn. Big box stalls face each other across a wide aisle, the paneling a smooth dark hardwood. In front of each stall—I count fourteen—is a trunk with a brass nameplate. The horses peer out, fine heads with combed and clipped manes and ears at attention.

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “These horses are great. Eleanor’s a legend. There’s a long waiting list.”

  “To board them?”

  “Yes. Our horses are schooled for hunting and shows. And dressage. Most of these horses were made here.”

  “Made?”

  Vicky nods. “It means schooled. We don’t say broken.”

  “Oh, the horse whisperer thing.”

  “Lots of positive reinforcement. It takes longer, but it’s really the better way, except—” Vicky looks me in the eye. “When I give a lesson, I always say, ‘They’re wonderful animals, but the fact is, a horse can kill you.’ They weigh over half a ton, and they operate on fight-or-flight. There’s a T-shirt in the horse catalogs that says ‘I whisper, but my horse doesn’t listen.’ Do you ride?”

  “Not since my summer camp days.”

  She pats the rump of a chestnut horse and explains the difference between a currycomb and dandy brush.

  “Vicky, I hear that Andrew Vogler is a lifelong rider. You must know him?” She nods. “And Steven Damelin?”

  “Him too.” Her nod is curt, and she brushes the horse. Does she know the Vogler family history? Or that Steven is dead?

  “Diablo,” she says at last. “Steve and Drew owned Diablo together.” She points with her brush. “The far stall on the right is his. The name’s on the tack trunk.”

  I walk down and peer in. Much bigger than the chestnut horse, so black he’s blue, Diablo tenses at my approach, kicks hind hooves against the stall, and swings his massive neck from side to side, his long mane looking storm-tossed. His eyes are fierce, and pink ridges glisten across the shoulders and haunches. Ointment on lacerations? His deep whinny sounds like a protest and threat. I backtrack to the open stall.

  “Vicky, Diablo looks wild. I saw marks on his shoulders and rump. What are they?”

  “They’re going to be scars.” She reaches for a bridle.

  “How did Diablo get cut?”

  She lifts the bridle over the horse’s head. “Barbed wire will wound a horse. And scar it.”

  “I don’t see any barbed wire.”

  She goes fo
r a saddle. “Eleanor’s in the clubroom. She’ll be right with you.”

  What clubroom? Why is there a lacerated horse in this “horse whisperer” barn that is owned and operated by an equestrian “legend”? The Flint Ridge trainer clearly did not want to talk about it.

  Suddenly something thick and smooth wipes my leg. Claws dig in, and teeth sink into my fingers as I swat. “Ouch… hey, cat, stop, quit that. Let go.”

  “Teaser, get away.” The voice is a whiskey tenor. The cat flees, and I face a woman in tan corduroy jodhpurs, high black boots, a ribbed sweater, and huge diamond drop earrings. “I’m Eleanor Comber.”

  Well over the age of fifty, the former Mrs. Leonard Vogler wears no makeup, but her green-gray eyes suggest acquisition and vigilance. Her extended hand is sinew and bone.

  “Never mind Teaser. His manners are dreadful, but he’s a champion mouser. I’ve kept you waiting shamelessly, but I had to speak to our farrier. I still feel mixed about titanium shoes—now, who left that door ajar?” She snaps a door shut. “If horses get into that feed room, they overeat and injure themselves. Everybody knows that. Let’s go into the clubroom.”

  I’m ushered into a large room with an overstuffed sofa, chunky pine tables, and fox-head lamps. Photographs of horses and riders cover the walls, and prize ribbons band the room like a frieze. At the far end is a stairway to a second floor.

  “Please sit down, Ms. Cutter.”

  “‘Regina,’ if you will.” A chair nearest a phone seems to be Eleanor’s own spot. I take the sofa. “What a nice comfortable room.”

  What a banal remark. But Eleanor Comber smiles. “We added this three years ago. Everyone seems to enjoy it. Upstairs we have a monitor to analyze tapes and DVDs of the different riders and horses.” She studies me. “I take it you do not ride.”

  It’s clearly a test. Summer camp rides on swaybacked nags won’t count. “Not in recent years,” I say, “but I once loved trail rides. Your Flint Ridge stable brings it all back. I miss it. Perhaps one day I’ll have the opportunity again.”