Walking on My Grave

by Carolyn Hart

  The Rolls glided to a stop in front of a two-story wooden building and parked next to Katherine Farley’s gray Lexus. A sign hung above the steps to the piazza: FARLEY STUDIO AND GALLERY.

  Henny drove another hundred yards around a grove of pines to a cottage on pilings very similar to her home on a neighboring marsh. She parked on a sandy drive behind a Honda van with a lift on the back for a wheelchair. She noted a similar lift at the top of the steps.

  As she shut the door of her Dodge, Henny looked out at the winter-pale stubble of spartina grass, took a deep breath of the familiar pungent marsh odor. She never tired of the marsh, enjoying the greening grasses in spring, steaming mud flats in summer, migrating birds overhead in autumn, raccoons fishing for clams in winter.

  She climbed the stairs to the landing and knocked on a weathered front door.

  “Come in.” Bob’s voice was muffled.

  Henny reached for the knob, turned. The door swung in and she stepped inside.

  Bob Farley was seated in his wheelchair by the windows overlooking the marsh. He looked at her and there was politeness, but no warmth in his face. He finally managed a cursory smile and seemed to rouse himself. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Come in.”

  Henny had often visited the studio when Bob and Katherine held receptions to display their latest work, his oil paintings of marshes, ocean, beaches, and Low Country wildlife from foraging raccoons to attacking owls, and Katherine’s clever pen-and-ink sketches of islanders at work or play. Henny especially treasured two sketches of the Miss Jolene. In one, holidayers arrived on the ferry, pale faces eager. In the second, vacationers departed, faces sunburned, noses splotched with zinc oxide, looking back across the water as if trying to hold on to lazy days and wet feet in warm sudsy water and frosty bottles of beer and no thought for tomorrow.

  Henny settled on a rattan chair and smiled at Bob, keeping her expression bright and open with no hint of how painful it was to see the gauntness of his face and the immobile arm that had once created such beauty. She hurried to speak. “It’s been much too long. Ves Roundtree told me about the safari you’re planning to Kenya.” She opened her purse, drew out a manila envelope, handed it to Bob. “I wanted to bring you the guidebook from the trip I made last year to Samburu. I hope you can include that reserve in your itinerary. Absolutely rugged country, but I saw some amazing animals, a herd of Grévy’s zebra and more than a dozen Somali ostrich.” She chattered on. “Our guide was a Cornell graduate, and he told us the status of endangered animals and especially the need to protect elephants.”

  Bob pulled out a guidebook, glanced down, made no effort to open it. “A safari. Yes. We’ve talked about that.” His voice was dull. “You’re very kind to think of us. I’ll show Katherine.” The guidebook rested in his lap.

  Henny felt as if she pushed against a gate that wouldn’t open. “I’ve been carrying it around ever since last Thursday. I dropped by about five, but you weren’t here and Katherine’s car was gone, too, so”—a cheerful smile—“I called to be sure you’d be here this morning. I waited a little while Thursday but you didn’t come home. What took you out on such a foggy afternoon?”

  Bob Farley stared out at the marsh, but Henny knew he wasn’t seeing a vee of pelicans or the ripple of the incoming tide. “Thursday.” He turned toward her. “I was here Thursday.” His expression was remote. “You must have come by Wednesday.” He again stared out the windows at the marsh. Sudden deep lines indented his face on either side of his lips. “It was foggy then, too. When the fog hides the marsh, I feel trapped. I got out for a while. I took a drive. Wednesday.” He pressed one thin hand against his cheek.

  When fog settles on the island, wreathes in the trees like an old woman’s straggly gray hair, pools into cottony mounds where roads dip, islanders drive cautiously, if at all.

  Henny was casual. “I thought I dropped by Thursday, but perhaps I’m mistaken.”

  “I was here Thursday.” There was the slightest emphasis on here.

  Henny had a sense that his words meant much more than she understood. Was his insistence that he was home Thursday an effort to distance himself from Ves’s house?

  “I don’t suppose Katherine was out in the fog either day.”

  His gaze moved to a photograph of a laughing Katherine on a sunny day, barefoot on the beach, breeze-stirred sea oats behind her. “She hates driving in fog. She hates fog. But she had a delivery Thursday afternoon.” A long pause, then he said in a weary tone, “I promised her I’d stay home. So I did.”

  • • •

  “The blossoms are always six petaled and a rich cream color.” Katherine Farley gestured at a watercolor in the center of one wall. “The flowers bloom from May to July at the top of the stalk. The dagger-shaped leaves at the base have a sharp tip and they really hurt.” There was remembered discomfort in her voice. “I was sketching them, my camp stool toppled, and I brushed some spines as I went down. But I love that painting. It was worth the pain.”

  Emma disliked cold weather. In a puffy quilted beige caftan with occasional chartreuse spots, she resembled a mobile stuffed leopard. That her appearance might amuse some was of no matter to her. She relished comfort and dismissed fashion as irrelevant. She sat with her usual imposing posture in a solid oak Stickley cube chair with a comfortable red leather back and cushion. A number of sketches were spread on a cocktail table in front of her.

  Katherine perched on a wooden bench near the table. This morning she was austere in a heather matte knit jersey sweater, blouse, and slacks. With her smooth black hair drawn back in a bun, her chiseled features, and intent expression, she reminded Emma suddenly of a monk in a brown wool robe.

  Emma listened to Katherine while she plumbed the vagrant thought. There was nothing remotely monklike about Katherine. Except, yes, there was an intensity, an almost frightening sense of leashed power focused elsewhere. Although she was making an effort to be charming to a prospective customer, she was jerky in her speech, obviously under some kind of stress.

  Emma was brisk. “I’m glad I caught you in the studio today. I dropped by last Thursday around five. I supposed you’d already closed up for the day.”

  “Thursday? I was making a delivery. I’m sorry I missed you. And glad you came back.” Again there was an effort at charm.

  “I am, too. Very impressed with your drawings,” Emma pointed at a pen-and-ink sketch of a large herring gull, blue-gray wings tipped with white, a white body, a bright yellow beak with a small red dot. Emma knew her seabirds, recognized the herring gull in summer or fall finery, the feather color and red dot beak indicating the season. “I rather fancy a wall of herring gulls. I’d like to commission you to do perhaps a dozen sketches for me. I’d like some of the gulls swimming or cracking clams or nesting. The sooner the better.” She spoke with the imperious assurance of a wealthy woman quite willing to pay whatever it might take to achieve her current whim.

  Katherine tried to keep her voice even. “A dozen sketches? I’d consider that, though it would require my putting aside some current projects.”

  Emma placed her square strong hands on the armrests, preparatory to rising. “I don’t want to put you behind.”

  Katherine leaned forward and spoke in a rush. “Oh no, nothing due anytime soon. I’d be delighted to undertake the commission. A dozen sketches?”

  Emma nodded. “That’s settled, then. Appreciate your cooperation.” As she came to her feet, she watched Katherine’s taut features relax, saw a tic at the corner of one eye, and knew she was seeing a woman desperate for money, pressed for money, willing to make any accommodation for money. Emma had known hard times. She was rich now. She had not always been rich. She remembered the hollowness when there were bills due and not enough money to pay them. “I understand this may interfere with other projects. Perhaps a thousand dollars a sketch.”

  Katherine’s eyes widened. “A thousand
. . .” Twelve thousand dollars.

  Emma was gruff. “This means quite a bit to me.” If everything worked out and she wasn’t talking to a future felon, she would enjoy the herring gull sketches in her terrace room, and she would be glad she’d been able to stave off the dogs of poverty nipping at Katherine for a while.

  Emma scooped up her oversized puffy cloth purse, a matching blue with tan spots, fumbled past a notebook, several pens, a cellophane bag of salt water taffy in assorted flavors, an iPad, an iPhone, three copies of her latest Marigold paperback, a change purse and billfold, an island map, an Amtrak schedule, a menu from Paula Deen’s restaurant in Savannah, this morning’s Wall Street Journal, pulled out her checkbook. “Be glad to pay half in advance.” She patted a zippered compartment that held a fifty-dollar gold piece now worth $1,500, her nose-thumb to the days when she’d had coffee for breakfast, a candy bar for lunch, and a Big Mac for dinner, when her change stretched that far.

  • • •

  Max skirted his silver Lamborghini, walked to their new runabout, a beige VW that he considered hardy enough for any island road. Its compact size avoided low-hanging branches and spiky underbrush. The car was a recent purchase, an unspoken statement to Annie that Confidential Commissions, his somewhat ambiguous business, would continue.

  Not long ago, he’d announced NO MORE: No More trying to solve mysteries, No More danger for Annie. Annie promised to stay out of other people’s troubles, but when a close friend was embroiled in a murder, Annie put her promise on hold. That’s when he understood that Annie had to be Annie, and he loved her because she cared about him, cared about others, cared about justice and honor and decency. So Confidential Commissions began a new chapter, and he bought the VW knowing there might be times when he wanted to drive about the island without attracting notice. He liked people, was good at finding out information. He understood the logic of checking out everyone who would profit when Ves died, but independent testimony would be definitive. If he found a nosy neighbor who saw one of the dinner guests on Sunshine Lane last Thursday around five P.M., they would have their answer. As he drove, he enjoyed a triumphant moment imagining how he would reveal the perp’s identity to Annie and the Incredible Trio and, at their exclamations of amazement, smugly say finding out was just a matter of legwork, good old-fashioned sleuthing.

  He drove past the entrance to Sea Side Inn. He reached the main road that looped around the entire island, and turned left, heading for the older residential area where antebellum homes were interspersed with cottages, an occasional doublewide on blocks, and a few modern ranch-style houses.

  Since he and Annie had moved to their antebellum house on Bay Road, he’d become familiar with this end of the island. Sunshine Lane intersected Federal near Morgan Manor, one of the island’s loveliest old homes, a three-story gray-green tabby home that sat far back on a lot behind several majestic live oaks and huge weeping willows. The house was almost always in shadow. One massive live oak was known as the Hanging Tree. A daughter of the house, learning of her lover’s death at the Battle of Honey Hill, took the veil especially made for their planned wedding and hung herself from a high limb.

  Max was glad to swing past the house onto Sunshine Lane, leaving behind the looming mansion and long-ago grief. Sunshine Lane was a gravel road. Loblolly pines crowded close on either side. The shadows from the trees belied the name. Every thirty or forty yards white signposts carried house numbers. Ves’s address was 207. No houses were visible from the road. Instead, narrow drives plunged into deep woods.

  There would be no nosy neighbors to ask if they’d seen anyone near Ves’s drive. An Oscar Mayer Wienermobile in all its orange-and-yellow glory could have wallowed up and down Sunshine Lane and never been noticed. No structures were visible from the lane because of the towering pines.

  Max reached the end of Sunshine Lane, made a U-turn. Ves’s drive mirrored the lane, a narrow road with pines pushing close on either side. He drove slowly, followed a curve into a clearing. He knew from his gardening mother that Ves had used native grasses for the lawn. A single-lane cement drive ended at a separate frame garage. Any car in the drive would be instantly visible to Ves when she arrived home. Max parked and walked around the garage. A neat vegetable garden ran from behind the garage to the woods. No one could have parked there.

  Max frowned and returned to the drive, studied the back of the house. The backyard was huge but offered no hiding places for a car. But someone entered the house, applied a slick substance to a step. The intruder had either arrived on foot—very unlikely—in a car, or on a bike. Max walked past the garage. He stopped next to a stand of bamboo and surveyed the yard. He had a good sense of geography. In good weather, he and Annie often took their old-fashioned bikes out for a ride, sometimes following a path down to the sea, sometimes to the marsh, sometimes winding behind homes. He walked swiftly across the backyard, plunged into the woods, found an asphalt trail about twenty yards from Ves’s property line. He remembered this trail. It connected with several paths, making Ves’s house easily accessible to anyone with a bike.

  He returned to the backyard. A bike would work, but if he planned to arrange a fatal accident for anyone, he thought he’d want to have a car handy for a quick departure. He passed a fountain, noted Diana with a bow and broken arrow, climbed Ves’s back steps. He knocked.

  No answer.

  Ves wasn’t home yet. He checked his watch, pulled a ring of keys from one pocket. The fourth key unlocked the back door. He stepped inside, felt an odd sensation knowing he was repeating the actions of Ves’s attacker. He walked to the front of the hall, turned to look up the steep stairs. The ticktock of the grandfather clock seemed loud. Max pulled a small laser flashlight from a pocket. He aimed the beam at the worn wooden treads, climbed swiftly. He slowed near the top. The fourth step looked unnaturally clean. He knelt, pantomimed pouring something onto the step, pretended to cap a can or canister, rose, and went down the stairs and outside, locking the door. He strode across the yard to a stand of bamboo that offered a good vantage point to watch for Ves’s arrival and be unobserved. He stopped by the bamboo, looked at his watch. Not quite four minutes.

  Max folded his arms. The unknown visitor waited for Ves to come home, waited to see what happened. If she hadn’t broken her fall, if all had been quiet, the waiting figure would have cautiously eased into the house. If Ves had been lying dead at the foot of the stairs, the mission was a success. If she were injured, unable to move, there would likely have been another blow to her head, one that would appear consistent with a fall.

  Instead, Ves limped outside, made it to her car.

  The would-be murderer wanted her death to appear accidental, so Ves was allowed to drive away. Then a hurried return to the house to clean the step. Likely the cleanup, while thorough, was done in haste just in case Ves called the police on her cell.

  Max frowned as he walked back to the VW. Instead of a triumphant revelation of the attacker’s identity, he had paltry bits of information. The house was accessible on a bike. If the attacker drove a car, it must have been hidden somewhere. There were no shoulders on Sunshine Lane, pines thick on either side right up to the graveled road. He was almost to the entrance to Sunshine Lane when he jammed on the brakes, rolled down the window, and backed up a few feet. He stared at a broken frond of a resurrection fern. His gaze dropped. In an instant, the engine was off and he slammed the driver’s door shut. Ruts. The indentations were faint but there were definite ruts. There had once been a road here. Traces of it angled past ferns and a bayberry bush. He pushed past the ferns and plunged into gloom. He walked ten feet, twenty, and felt a sense of success. Crushed vegetation indicated a car had come this way, likely stopped where he was standing.

  Max was thoughtful as he walked back to the VW. He should have remembered there were many homes on the island where people could come and go and never be noticed. Finding out who wanted Ves dead was not going
to be easy. Max checked his time. A quarter to ten. He slid a rarely used prepaid cell from his pocket. He didn’t use his regular cell, to avoid being identified on caller ID. The prepaid cell revealed only the caller’s number, and that was fine. He dialed.

  “Perfumerie. Gretchen speaking. How may I help you?”

  Max enjoyed occasional roles in the island’s summer theater. He affected a breezy, good ol’ boy ebullience. “Goofy Sullivan, pal of Curt’s. Here for a spot of golf and somebody gave me a heads-up, said Curt might be here. Like to look him up.” He listened. “Thanks a bunch.”

  5

  The sweet scent of gardenia mixed with a hint of ginger pleased Laurel as she stepped inside the elegant small shop on Main Street. Three mirrored kiosks with cushioned stools were arranged in a semiprivate curve to the right. To the left and ahead were counters filled with every variety of cosmetic, probably including the bright green malachite paste used as eye shadow by Cleopatra. A verse from Ecclesiastes was a favorite of Laurel’s: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Some might find the message chilling. Laurel in her own mystical way felt part of a continuum of time. Besides, beautiful women owed a duty to themselves to always appear at their best.

  Gretchen Roundtree in a becoming pastel blue smock came eagerly around the back counter. “Laurel, I’ve been thinking about you. We just received the newest Crème de la Mer moisturizing cream.” Her smile looked almost genuine.

  Laurel chided herself. That beaming smile was likely genuine. A commission on several jars of Crème de la Mer would be a tidy sum for a February sales day.

  With murmurs that reminded Laurel of starlings in a cluster, they exchanged pleasantries of the feminine sort—How lovely you look today. Such a pleasure to see you.—as Laurel settled on a cushioned stool. While Laurel studied her reflection in the three-way mirror, Gretchen brought a tray with several small jars and tubes, and perched on the next stool. Gretchen gently removed Laurel’s makeup. “I have a new ointment you will simply adore, perfect for your flawless complexion.”