Murder at Peacock Mansion

by Judy Alter

  That sent a shiver of worry through me. Who knew if the next ones might not be brighter?

  “But here’s the thing. Halstead said they’ve lawyered up—some slick lawyer from Dallas in Italian clothes and shoes. Expensive. Those two can’t afford him. And the lawyer won’t let them talk. Just tells them it will all be all right. And they listen. Halstead hasn’t gotten one drop of information about them, except that someone told them to go get those files.”

  So who is pulling the strings?

  On that note, we both went to bed. I heard David get up several times during the night, once to peer out the front windows, and I knew he was having as sleepless a night as I was.

  Chapter Seven

  Next morning I left the house at six, figuring David would call the café when he woke up. His ankle wasn’t up to crossing the sloping, rocky lot between the house and the café, but I certainly didn’t want to wake him. Sleep might restore the good nature of this man who I loved but who had almost become a stranger in the last forty-eight hours.

  Gram counseled me. “He’s been through a lot, Kate. Give him time. Give yourself patience.”

  “But….” I started to reply but she was gone again. Aloud, as though I were calling after her, I shouted, “Patience is not my strong point!”

  David did call. When I answered, there was no pleasant beginning. “Damn, I can’t even get off this porch with this so-called walking cast on. Will you call Cary?”

  I reminded him gently that Cary was in school and said I’d come get him. As I hung up, I heard a loud, “Blast and damn!”

  In no hurry, I left the kitchen in charge of Benny, the wonderful young Hispanic cook I’d hired, and snuck out the kitchen door. Gus was sitting on the tree stump, having his usual morning cigarette.

  “You be careful, Miss Kate. Somethin’s in the air. I can feel it in these old bones. And it ain’t good.”

  I put an arm around his shoulder and said, “I’ll be careful, Gus. Don’t you worry.” I wished I felt as self-confident as I sounded for him.

  David, apparently watching for me, hobbled out of the house by holding on to doorframes and the like. I helped him off the porch and over to the driveway so he could crawl into the car. Then we drove to the Blue Plate so he could have breakfast, but his telephone was already ringing. He looked at it and put it back in his pocket, but once he was settled at a corner table in the café, he pulled it out. I had no idea who he was calling and didn’t linger to find out. He’d asked for scrambled eggs and bacon, and I went off to get them.

  When I delivered his breakfast, I sat down and asked, “Okay, what do you need this morning?”

  “Crutches and better clothes,” he replied instantly. “And a private eye. But I’ve already taken care of that. Actually, he called me, looking for work, and I thought it was the perfect solution.”

  “A PI?”

  “Someone’s trying to kill my client, and I’m obviously not much help.” He gestured toward his ankle.

  For a moment, my nose was out of joint, a phrase Gram used a lot to tease us when Donna and I were jealous of something the other did or achieved. Kate, you are not a private investigator; you run a café and that’s enough to keep you busy! I just stared at him, not believing this whole mess had escalated enough that he called in a PI.

  “Maybe someone’s trying to kill you.”

  “Possible. Kate, I damn near died that day, would have if it weren’t for you! But you can’t save me all the time. And you sure can’t save Edith Aldridge. Someone out there is very serious. You may even be in danger since you can identify—what are their names?”

  “Big One and John.” I laughed. “Maybe it’s her stepchildren? I’m sure that’s what she thinks.”

  Shoveling eggs into his mouth as though he were still starving from hospital food, he managed to say, “Yeah. Greed is a powerful thing. But they couldn’t, wouldn’t have done what’s happened to me and Edith. They’ve got hired guns.”

  I thought back to John and Big One. If they were the best the stepchildren could do, they were all in trouble. I tried to explain that to David, but he countered.

  “They’ve done some pretty destructive things so far, Kate. Let’s not dismiss the danger. A trip wire, an attempted burglary, two attempted murders, arson. The Lord…or Gram…has been watching over us, but we can’t count on that.”

  How does he know about my one-sided conversations with Gram? Did I let something slip sometime? He wasn’t laughing at me, so I shrugged it off.

  Business was a bit slower than usual that day and, against my better judgment, I ended up taking David to the Target in Canton, where he grumbled about the quality of clothes, etc. But between Target and a drugstore chain, we got him presentable clothes—no fancy dinners in Tyler in the near future—and the toiletries he needed plus a pair of crutches that were handed to him with the warning, “Careful. Lots of people hurt themselves falling off these things.” Not reassuring, and David was indeed clumsy with them. I suspected it’s a matter of coordinating crutches, feet, and arms.

  I was back at the café barely in time for the lunch bunch. David had a tuna salad plate, after his large and late breakfast. He ate slowly, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

  “Is the tuna all right?” I asked on one pass by his table.

  “It’s fine. What time did you say Cary gets out of school?”

  “Three.” I looked at the clock, where the hands stood straight up at noon. Three whole hours. “Want to take a nap?” Part of me, a big part, didn’t want him to wait for Cary, because I wanted to go with him to see Edith Aldridge. Curiosity got the best of me. But what if we met Big One and John?

  David was watching me, trying to figure out what was going through my mind. Finally, he sighed and said, “I guess I’ll have to wait. No nap. I need to think.”

  “Wait till lunch is over,” I said. “If you promise on Scout’s honor we’ll be back by four thirty, I’ll take you.”

  David knew me too well, and he grinned. “Just because you’re curious.”

  I was glad to see that familiar grin back, even if it was temporary.

  ****

  On the drive to see Mrs. Aldridge, David was solemn again. “Kate, let me handle this. Don’t ask a lot of questions.”

  “She asked me to help her,” I said as calmly as I could. “And that was before you were beaten. She thinks you’re the lawyer, and I’m the detective.”

  He was trying to be patient. “I’ve hired a private investigator, as I told you. He’ll meet us there.”

  David was being devious. He’d known all along that I couldn’t wait to drive him and had arranged this meeting without telling or asking me. I drove in silence until I blurted out, “David, how much money are we talking about? Is it worth all that whoever is doing?”

  “I have no idea. She’s been cagey, even with me. I’m wondering if there are hidden treasures in the house—art, rare books, stuff like that. Maybe there’s a safe behind a huge painting. I honestly don’t know, but it’s got to be something for anybody to go to all this trouble.”

  “How valuable is this house?”

  He almost laughed. “Location, location, location. It’s not exactly in a ritzy setting, out in the country in East Texas. But city folks with money are beginning to be more interested in East Texas. Last comps I looked at were something like two million, mostly the land it’s on.”

  I whistled.

  From the road you couldn’t see the house at all. David told me to turn when we reached an elaborate iron double gate. A bronze plaque on the stone pillar at the side of the gate read, “Peacock Mansion.” A puzzling name. I pressed a button on a stone post at my side of the car, gave David’s name, and the gates opened magically. The house sat at the end of a long, winding driveway with trees lining the road. Scrub oak and the like—this was no southern antebellum mansion.

  Well-manicured lawns rolled away from the paver-brick driveway on either side. Far down one grassy slope I saw a h
uge pond with swans swimming along, their beautiful necks arched high. On the lawn beside the pond a peacock paraded with his feathers spread in all their glory. Now I knew where the name came from, but I had a hard time putting this picture together with rural East Texas as I knew it—maybe Highland Park in Dallas, but not outside Canton. And yet there was something creepy about it that sent a shiver through me.

  David noticed. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just something gave me a chill for a minute.”

  “Probably all the stories you’ve heard about this house. Put them out of your mind. It’s a wonderful house—just in an odd place.”

  I wasn’t sure I found that comforting. Besides, I hadn’t heard stories except that Mrs. Aldridge told me she was accused and acquitted of her husband’s murder in the house.

  The house itself was faux Tudor in style. Brick on the first floor, half-timbered stucco on the second, with a tile roof. A double wooden door with elaborate brass ornamentation reminded me of an English castle.

  Edith Aldridge greeted us in a tiled entryway that was like something out of a 1940s movie. She wore a hostess gown, the kind of garment I’d never in my life have use for but coveted immediately. Her welcome was warm and genuine. She took both my hands in hers and gave me a smile. Then she turned to fuss over David, saying we must get him off his feet.

  A man stood as we came in, and Edith Aldridge introduced me to Steven Connell. He was everything I expected a PI to be—almost middle-aged, a bit overweight, casually dressed (in the extreme with a wrinkled shirt, corduroy blazer, and jeans over boots). But he was polite, even jovial.

  “I hear you may be able to help me find out what’s going on around here.”

  I blushed to the roots of my hair and said something stupid, like “I’ve just been in the right place at the right time once or twice.” I didn’t want to admit to nosiness.

  “Or the wrong place,” David added wryly, hobbling forward to shake his hand and greet him with a simple, “Steven. Good of you to come.”

  “Sounds like too much fun to miss,” was the reply.

  Edith Aldridge frowned a bit and cast a skeptical eye at this new figure. This was obviously not her idea of fun.

  Steven didn’t miss a beat. “Mrs. Aldridge showed me the trip wire. She cut it but left it in place, which was good thinking. No amateur job.”

  How much skill does it take to nail a trip wire across a staircase?

  “High enough up she wouldn’t yet be looking down and her fall would probably be fatal. Lower down on the staircase, she would have been looking down and the fall wouldn’t have been so bad. And she left the office untouched—”

  Edith Aldridge interrupted without hesitation. “David needs to sit down, and I’ll order us some tea.”

  David was settled on an uncomfortable-looking Victorian sofa in the room she referred to as the parlor. I fetched a stool for his bad leg and then sat beside him and studied the room while Mrs. Aldridge—I wished I could call her Edith—rang for a maid.

  The parlor had pulled plaster walls with paintings that were original and, to my only slightly trained eye, probably worth something. No old masters, no hidden collection of valuable art—unless it was in the basement. One wall held a large oil depicting the landscape of East Texas, with a small lake. I speculated about a hidden safe. The floor was varied width, pegged oak, mostly covered by a huge Oriental rug.

  When a maid came and took the order, I sort of hoped we were in for watercress and cream cheese sandwiches, along with egg salad.

  While we waited, Steven wanted to see the office, and I tagged along. Not to be left behind, David struggled to upright his crutches and follow us, a bit slowly.

  The office was a dark-paneled room, walls lined with glass-fronted bookcases. A massive desk dominated, and two leather chairs offered cushy seats for visitors. Clearly a man’s space. The desk drawers were pulled open, and papers were scattered as though they’d been tossed on the desktop and the floor around the desk.

  “This is where I supposedly shot my husband,” Edith said. “They never found a gun, and there was no residue on my hands. I called the sheriff as soon as I found him.”

  “You didn’t hear the shot?” Steven asked.

  I thought I detected a bit of skepticism in his question.

  “I was out walking on the lawn, some distance from the house, with my dog. So, no, I didn’t hear it. It was coming dusk, and I didn’t see anyone. The staff—my cook, housemaid, and chauffeur—were all thoroughly questioned and cleared. I did not shoot my husband, though Lord knows there were times I was tempted.”

  That startled me, and as we trooped back to the parlor, I thought perhaps I was too quick to dismiss her as a suspect. She could have rigged the trip wire herself and made a mess of the office. But why would she have David beaten? The answer was obvious—to retrieve his files. And yet here she was fussing over him like a mother. Edith Aldridge was either innocent or a damn fine actress.

  Tea distracted me. A three-tiered tray held the hoped-for finger sandwiches and apricot scones. Mrs. Aldridge poured tea into delicate cups with handles so small that you had little choice but to raise your pinkie to get it out of the way. Both David and Steven looked skeptical about the tea, but I loved it.

  Steven asked when she’d last heard from “the children,” and she said she never heard from them, and that was fine with her. No, she had an idea that they’d suddenly become upset all over again. She said they thought she killed their father and were angry that she didn’t go to jail and forfeit her inheritance.

  She handed each of us a sheet identifying the three children, with a brief paragraph about each. Rodney, the eldest, was a financial planner in Dallas—I shuddered because my family had already had one bad run-in with a financial planner. Rose, the middle child, was fifty-two, mother of one daughter, married to a lawyer, and lived well in Dallas, playing golf, going to bridge club and ladies’ teas, and the like. Finally, James, an artist who lived in nearby Edom.

  I immediately decided James was the usual starving artist and desperate for money. Stereotyping, Kate! Besides, artists were free spirits, or so I thought, and given to neither cunning nor brutality. Rose probably wasn’t much along those lines either, though it might be instructive to find out about her husband. My money was on Rodney having the cunning, connections, and brains to try to outwit his stepmother. I was not going to explain my reasoning to David.

  After we’d talked a while longer, Steven asked to explore the house, inside and out.

  “I promised Kate we’d be back at the café in plenty of time for the dinner service,” David said, “so we best be going. Steven, call me later and tell me what you found.”

  We made our polite farewells to Edith and were headed back to Wheeler.

  “Didn’t learn much, did we?” David asked.

  “Oh, yeah, I think we learned a lot—the children, if nothing else.” I bit my tongue to keep from fingering Rodney right away. David would have countered that the law is built on logic, not instinct.

  “True, but we didn’t find out why she’s being so cagey about what the children could want. And we have no idea who really killed Walter Aldridge. That might solve the whole thing.” He stared out the window for a minute. “While you’re busy with the supper crowd, I’ll go back to the house and do some online research into the murder. No use talking to the sheriff—he wasn’t around then, and I doubt his records go back that far in any detail. Maybe I can find out who the lawyers were—like who defended Edith.”

  “You didn’t?”

  He pretended mock indignation. “Even I wasn’t practicing law thirty years ago. I didn’t know much about the case. It was a cold case when Edith Aldridge came to me, say, some twenty years ago.”

  “Why did she suddenly come to you? Was she dissatisfied with her current lawyer then?”

  “I’d have to look at my records…and Halstead has them.”

  I drove him to the house, helped him get settled with
his computer, and left for the café, promising to bring back meatloaf sandwiches.

  Supper at the café was neither slow nor busy—just a steady stream of guests, most of whom I knew and stopped to chat with. It was a bit after nine when I closed up and took the receipts home with me. I could reconcile while David explored.

  Opening the back door, I called cheerily, “I’m home,” only to see that though lights blazed in the kitchen, David’s computer screen was dark, which meant he hadn’t touched it in a while. A moment of panic receded when I found him sound asleep in his bed. He never woke up until morning, and I ate a lonely meatloaf sandwich that night.

  Chapter Eight

  Rodney Aldridge, the oldest of the “children,” came into the café a few days after our visit to Edith Aldridge. Of course, I didn’t know it was him. I just noticed a man who didn’t look like he belonged in the Blue Plate Café. Stocky, slightly overweight, with a pasty face and dark hair slicked back from his forehead, he looked like a used car salesman to me. I seated him at a table in the front room and brought a menu, asked what he’d like to drink.

  “Coffee, please.” He studied the menu with great care. “Is your tuna salad fresh?”

  I really mostly serve tuna for the women. My men customers want chicken-fried and meatloaf and a hearty midday meal. “It’s canned tuna.” I wasn’t sure if he meant one of those fancy salads with a filet of tuna over it.

  “No, no. Was it made today?”

  Sometimes I carried tuna over to a second day, but this time I could truthfully answer, “Yes, it was.”

  He ordered the tuna salad plate, with a side of cottage cheese. Then he asked, “Is Miss Kate Chambers available?”

  “I’m Kate.”

  He rose to hold out his hand in greeting. A limp handshake. “I hope we can visit while I’m here.”

  “Of course. Just let me turn this order in.”

  I did, alerted Marj, and went to sit down at his table with a muttered, “May I?”