Cross Your Heart and Hope to Die

by Nancy Martin

  “We checked,” Stan said, “but there’s no Number Seven Oak Street in the city or any of the suburbs. I thought you might recognize it.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

  He took a small sip of his coffee, like a man who knew how to nurse a drink in a betting parlor. I knew Stan ducked out every afternoon for his AA meeting and suddenly wanted to ask him how he worked to overcome his problem. Did he have siblings who pestered him to stay sober?

  He said, “There’s another thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “When we went through Kitty’s desk, there was a letter. It outlined what she wanted after her death.”

  I looked up from the photocopied pages. “You mean a will?”

  “There was a will, but another document, too. It’s newer. The company lawyers are reading it now. It specifies about her funeral. For people with no family, I guess it’s common to find such letters in desks at work.”

  “What’s it to be? A pyre in Rittenhouse Square?”

  “Actually, that’s up to you.”

  I laughed shortly. “To me?”

  Stan didn’t blink. “That’s right. Kitty wanted you to take charge of her funeral. Or memorial service—whatever. She said to leave the details up to you.”

  “Why me?” Flummoxed, I asked, “Doesn’t she have any family?”

  “Apparently not. She may not have acted like it, Nora, but Kitty respected you. She knew you’d do the right thing.”

  I muttered a word that seldom crossed my lips.

  Stan let me think about things for a minute while he sipped another quarter teaspoon of his coffee. Then he said, “We’re running her obit today. But the space for her column on Sunday should probably include some kind of tribute to her. I was hoping you’d write it.”

  Still stunned, I said, “What would I write?”

  “You’ll come up with something appropriate. You’re a good writer, and you have good instincts. Consider it an audition piece.” He set his coffee cup in the saucer. “I wish I could offer you Kitty’s job right now, Nora. I can make a recommendation about Kitty’s replacement, but nobody’s going to take me seriously if I suggest you right away. Especially after somebody delivered her body to your house.”

  “I know it looks bad.”

  He nodded. “The guys at the news desk have heard that your sister was making public remarks about Kitty—how you’d be better off if she weren’t around anymore.”

  I groaned as I remembered Libby’s stupid exclamation. “My sister is no diplomat. She wasn’t serious, Stan.”

  “I assumed so.” He leaned forward on his elbows to tell me more. “The police didn’t just go through Kitty’s desk, Nora. They wanted to search yours, too. The company lawyers stopped them, but . . . Look, I’ve spent a lot of time around cops, and I can guess what they’re thinking. They want to believe somebody might have killed Kitty as a favor to you.”

  “A favor?”

  “So you’d get her job.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, they haven’t taken a good look at our working conditions yet.” He allowed a grim smile. “Nora, I’d love to interview you for the Intelligencer and get the whole story—everything about your boyfriend, the whole nine yards. But that’s not my job anymore. My job is to edit a Features section that will sell papers. I believe you can help me do that. Fact is, I want you to have Kitty’s column. But until your connection to her death is cleared, my hands are tied.”

  Out of nowhere, I heard myself say, “I can’t believe Kitty’s gone.”

  I hadn’t liked Kitty. She had certainly made a public display of hating me. But her death unnerved me just the same.

  “Me neither,” said Stan. “I hated her tantrums and bullying and all the diva stuff. But she was the most reader-savvy writer in my department, and the paper is going to take a hit now that she’s gone. You can write, and you know the people who count. Her beat is really your turf. But can you take your assets to the next level?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kitty had ideas. She had opinions. She made people mad, but her work always got attention. In the newspaper business, that means something.”

  “I can’t write like Kitty. I can’t smear people. She ruined lives, Stan.”

  “Bull. People ruin their own lives. She might have made their falls more public, but she didn’t stick out her foot and trip anybody up.”

  “Then what . . . ?”

  “She had a vision. And she used her skills to back it up. You need to figure out a way to use your own talents to support a viewpoint that’s distinctly yours. I don’t want another Kitty. I want somebody new and fresh.”

  The bartender brought our sandwiches and my juice, then warmed up Stan’s coffee. Stan picked up half his Reuben.

  I sat staring at my BLT, wondering why I’d ordered it. “I’m not a journalist, Stan. I never claimed to be.”

  “Do you want to sit at Kitty’s desk?”

  I didn’t need to look farther than my bank account to know that I needed a better job than the one I had at the moment. But as Stan waited for me to respond, I suddenly had a new answer. I hadn’t enjoyed being Kitty’s handmaiden. She had made me feel devalued and foolish even while I contributed to her column. But I knew her world better than she had, and I was sure I could do her work better, too.

  “Yes,” I said before I could stop myself. “I really do.”

  “So make it happen. Quit worrying about being so damn polite. Come up with your own concept of the social column.”

  “What if my concept isn’t what the newspaper wants?”

  “Convince us,” Stan said, around a mouthful of sandwich. “What have you got to lose?”

  Stan was right. I didn’t have much to lose anymore. And I had a lot to gain. It was about time I had more going for myself than a broken-down farm and a lover who spent a lot of time in and out of police custody, not to mention two sisters who weren’t exactly Mary-Kate and Ashley.

  “Thanks, Stan,” I said. “It’s nice to know I have a mentor.”

  He snorted. “A mentor? I just want the least likely pain in my ass to get Kitty’s job. That means you.”

  “You’re a dear.” I picked up my sandwich and forced myself to eat a few bites.

  He drank more coffee and studied the tabletop for a moment. “Funny thing. I have a hunch Kitty was on the trail of a story when she died.”

  “A news story?”

  “Something beyond her usual beat. I don’t know what it was.”

  “Maybe it got her killed.”

  Stan smiled wryly. “That only happens in the movies.”

  I had a brainstorm. Suddenly I knew exactly what Number Seven Oaks meant.

  Across the table, Stan blinked at me. “You okay?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I ate quickly and thanked Stan for meeting me away from the office and the news reporters. Then I telephoned Reed from the public phone. Twenty minutes later, he pulled up to the curb in the black town car. I slipped into the backseat, and Spike leaped at me in a frenzy of joyous puppy kisses.

  “Reed, I need to get to Bryn Mawr.”

  The tony suburb of Philadelphia included a few well-manicured colleges, dozens of estates that could pass for Hollywood sets, and a patchwork of upscale shops, restaurants and luxury car dealerships. Litter didn’t linger in the streets for long, and a corner patisserie did a brisk afternoon business in low-fat lemon tea cookies. Some of my dearest friends entertained each other at Chez Nous, just around the corner from a pricey day spa.

  “This some kind of park?” Reed asked when he drove the car through a towering gate and into a beautifully designed landscape of graceful hillocks and mammoth trees.

  “No, it’s a private home,” I replied.

  Cast in the bronze gate was the name of the estate. Tall Trees. Those of us who grew up visiting the house and grounds knew the place by its original name, Seven Oaks. During a storm fifteen years ago, half
the trees had been knocked down, so the new name made sense. Unless you’d been invited to parties on the old estate, you’d not know its former name.

  Reed glanced over the trimmed bushes to the Henry Moore statue that sat stolidly in the east lawn. “Scarlett O’Hara live here?”

  “No, just an old family.”

  Reed mumbled something under his breath. I directed him to drive me around the back of the gracious brick home.

  When we arrived at the back door I checked my face in my compact and touched a little powder to my cheek before I hopped out. I asked Reed to wait for me.

  “What about the dog?” he asked, eyeing Spike as if he’d like to see him roasting over a campfire.

  “Maybe he’d like a walk,” I suggested. “There’s an old croquet lawn beyond the big garage.” I pointed.

  “That’s a garage?”

  “It used to be a barn. I bet there is something interesting to keep him busy there.”

  “That’s what scares me.” Reed sighed.

  A cold wind whipped my coat as I dashed up the stone steps to the servants’ entrance. A simple wreath of magnolia leaves with a unfussy tan ribbon decorated the door. I rang the bellpull and waited only ten seconds before a white-clad figure appeared on the other side of the window. She unlocked and opened the door.

  “Is Miss O’Toole at home?” I asked. “I’m Nora Blackbird.”

  The sturdy middle-aged woman invited me inside. She wore an immaculate white apron over a white cotton shirt and—once the door was opened wide—blue jeans and running shoes. She shook my proffered hand. “Nora, I’m Agnes Harley. Forgive my cold hands. I’ve been cleaning.”

  “I didn’t recognize you at first, Agnes. You’ve lost weight.”

  “South Beach diet,” she said with a grin. “Eighty-two pounds. Come into the kitchen. I’ll call Mary Margaret.”

  I waited in the large, modern kitchen, where a king’s ransom in silver had been laid out on the long center island along with cleaning supplies. Two candelabra, shined to perfection, stood in a splash of sunlight on the round table in a breakfast alcove. The scent of fresh-brewed coffee wafted in the air. I could see my reflection in the gleaming marble countertop. It could have been a kitchen in Architectural Digest.

  “Nora?”

  Mary Margaret O’Toole crossed the kitchen in three athletic strides and hugged me with her long arms. “Isn’t it wonderful to see you? I loved your Christmas card this year. You make your sisters sound so funny, don’t you? How are you, dear? Aggie, let’s have some of your delicious coffee, shall we?”

  Irish to the bone, Mary Margaret was fair-skinned, prematurely white-haired, and shaped like one of those warrior-women statutes that stand at park gates with their swords raised and bosoms flaunted. Except Mary Margaret didn’t wear armor. Her no-nonsense blue jeans were better suited to the housework that kept her busy. She managed to stylishly elevate the casual jeans with a faded green cashmere sweater and ballet-slipper flats that showed off her slim ankles. I often thought of her with a feather duster carried aloft like a sword, though. She managed the household with more fervor than a crusader marching into Jerusalem.

  “I’m fine, Meg. And you? I should have called ahead, but—”

  “Am I ever too busy for a chat with a friend?” She pulled me to the breakfast alcove. “This house isn’t going anywhere, is it?”

  I had met Mary Margaret when she first came over from County Cork, employed by the family to look after Oriana.

  “She’s not a governess,” Oriana had firmly assured me at the age of ten. “She’s my companion.”

  As well as her personal maid, tennis instructor and bodyguard.

  All jobs that hadn’t used up Mary Margaret’s boundless energy. At twenty-nine, she had quickly assumed more important roles around the household by making herself invaluable to the whole family. Within a decade she was running the house with an iron fist—so much so that Oriana’s father, industrial titan and a man who had faced down Joe McCarthy, had once asked Mary Margaret’s permission to smoke a cigar in his own library.

  Now, with the family nearly all gone, she continued to manage the housekeeping at Tall Trees with as much attention to detail as if the place were her own. It was her home, of course. I knew she lived in a spacious third-floor apartment that enjoyed the most picturesque views of the estate. She had served me coffee and raspberry scones in her sitting room when I came calling two weeks after Oriana’s memorial service.

  “What brings you all the way here?” Mary Margaret asked when she’d taken my coat and urged me into a chair at the table. “Come to ask my opinion of your young man, have you?”

  “How do you know I have a young man?”

  “It’s in the papers, isn’t it?” Her green eyes sparkled. “They say you’re having an affair with a very naughty boyo. What’s his name? Is he Irish, then?”

  So the morning’s newspapers had included Michael’s latest brush with the law. No wonder Reed had kept me in the dark.

  “He’s Michael,” I said. “They call him Michael ‘the Mick’ because he has blue eyes. His mother was Irish.”

  “Was she, now? And how’s he behaving for you, this half-Irish mongrel?”

  I couldn’t stop my fingertips from touching the bruise on my face, which she’d noted, of course, despite my careful attempt to cover it. “He’s a perfect gentleman,” I said. “I’ve never known anyone kinder.”

  “But?” she prompted, only half believing me.

  “He’s been known to get into trouble,” I acknowledged. “This time it’s not his fault.”

  Mary Margaret ended her false gaiety. “The newspapers say he’s the one who killed that awful woman. Kitty Keough was the one who scorned Miss Oriana for marrying so young, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes. But Michael had nothing to do with her death. I hope you’ll trust me when I say he’s innocent.”

  Agnes brought coffee on a tray—three flowered cups with saucers, a silver coffeepot, sugar and cream in matching china and a clutch of demitasse spoons. But after putting the tray on the table, she quietly picked up the third cup and began to carry it out of the room.

  “Agnes, please stay,” I called after her. “I’m not revealing any secrets you can’t hear.”

  Mary Margaret smiled and companionably patted the chair next to hers. “You’ll have a sit-down, won’t you, Aggie? I think Nora’s come to pick our brains.”

  I accepted the cup of coffee she soothingly passed to me. “I need to know whether Kitty Keough was here night before last.”

  “Here?” Mary Margaret and Agnes exchanged startled glances.

  “She was supposed to attend an event in the city, but canceled at the last minute. And her date book indicated she might have had an appointment here. At least that’s what I’m guessing.”

  “She wasn’t in the house,” Mary Margaret said. “I’d have known that, wouldn’t I? We keep the place locked up tight. And when was the last time a soul came calling here?”

  “The week before Christmas,” Agnes volunteered. Her flat American accent contrasted with Meg’s Irish lilt. “Mr. Hemmings had a party for some friends. He entertained in the old gardener’s house. A dozen people came. At least, I prepared food for twelve and delivered it at four. Mr. Hemmings insists on punctuality. Cocktails at five, just like his mum. No green olives, only black. Always pour the glasses exactly seven-eighths full. No getting back into the gardener’s house until eight the next morning.”

  So Hemorrhoid was still bizarrely rigid, even at home. “He doesn’t live in this house?”

  “He does. But he doesn’t entertain here. He prefers the privacy of the gardener’s house. We don’t speculate about what goes on there. It’s none of our business, really.”

  Mary Margaret had pursed her lips and kept silent during Agnes’s explanation of the living arrangements.

  “Have you met any of Hem’s guests in the past?”

  “A few. I don’t remember Miss Keough being here, th
ough. Hemmings tends to have younger people to his evening parties.”

  I took a chance. “What about Brinker Holt?”

  Mary Margaret frowned. “That name’s familiar, isn’t it? Is he an unpleasant fellow with a shaved head? Carrying a video camera, perhaps?”

  “That would be him.”

  “He was walking all over the place, filming one evening. I suggested he get himself back to the cottage before the guard dogs found him.” Mary Margaret smiled. “Of course, we haven’t had guard dogs in years.”

  I said, “Could Kitty have gone to the gardener’s house night before last to meet Hem without your knowing?”

  “That’s not his schedule. He only entertains in the gardener’s house on specific nights, and that wasn’t one of them.”

  “Could she have gotten onto the grounds without your knowing?”

  “Normally, we hear cars that arrive by the driveway. I didn’t hear anyone arrive, but I suppose someone could have slipped through. The security system runs the perimeter of the grounds,” Mary Margaret explained to me. “There used to be an alarm on the gate that beeped when somebody drove through, but that was shut off since Mr. Hemmings requested it about a year ago. The beep annoyed him.”

  I could see the strain in Mary Margaret’s face and knew she had been engaged in a battle of wills with Hemorrhoid. I said, “It must be hard living with a young man like Hemmings.”

  “It’s good to have challenges,” Mary Margaret said with diplomacy.

  “And we wouldn’t dream of leaving,” Agnes added staunchly. “Not while Mr. Orlando is still here.”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to Oriana’s child.” Mary Margaret’s eyes misted briefly, but she controlled herself.

  I touched her hand. “I’m glad you’re looking after him. I saw him night before last, and he seemed . . . well, I know he’s had a hard couple of years.”

  “He’s at school most of the time,” Mary Margaret said. “We only have him on holidays now. And then Mr. Hemmings wants to be in charge. Has the boy on a strict schedule and an even more strict diet, but we do our best to spoil him a wee bit when he’s here.”