by Ella Barrick
We knocked on the door of a blue bungalow that looked like something out of a Beatrix Potter book, complete with white shutters, white picket fence and gate, flowering shrubs, and nameplate on the door that said, HOLLYHOCK HAVEN. I just knew the other cottages had names like Rose Retreat and Sunflower Sanctuary.
“Gag me,” I muttered as the door swung inward. “Too cutesy.”
The man who stood in the doorway, a questioning look on his face, did not fit with the cottage. Instead of being plump and cheerful, he was heavy in a way that made me think of a burlap bag filled with wet cement, and had a waxy complexion that spoke of illness. Gray-blond strands of hair were combed straight back off a face lined beyond its fifty-some years. I saw little trace of Corinne or the handsome Turner in his features, although his eyes were the same intense blue. He’d shaved unevenly, and a quarter-sized patch of whiskers bristled to the right of his chin.
“Maurice?” Puzzlement and perhaps a bit of alarm flitted across his face. “What are you doing here?”
“Hello, Randolph,” Maurice said. “It’s been a while.”
“Years.” Corinne’s son did not seem inclined to invite us in.
“I came to tell you how sorry I am about your mother. I didn’t know if I’d see you at the funeral?”
“Who are you?” Randolph ignored Maurice and fastened his gaze on me.
“Stacy Graysin,” I said, offering my hand. “I’m a ballroom dancer like your mom and a friend of Maurice’s. I’m very sorry about your mother’s death.”
“I doubt you’re like her,” he said. His tone was ambiguous, and I wasn’t sure whether he meant to slam Corinne or me. Looking from me to Maurice, he sighed. “I guess you can come in. I don’t have anything to offer besides tea or water, though.” He backed away so Maurice and I could slide past him.
The home’s interior and decorations-heavy on chintz, doilies, embroidered pillows, and ruffled curtains-told me the place had come furnished. Only a flat-screen television and a laptop computer on an ottoman looked like they might belong to Randolph. He went ahead of us with the gingerly movements of a man in pain, and I remembered Maurice had said his painkiller addiction began when he injured his back. He led us into a kitchen so determinedly cheery that I expected a singing Snow White to pop out at any moment.
“Sit.”
Maurice and I sat at the round oak table while Randolph filled a teapot and put it on the stove. Lowering himself into a chair, he said, “So, to what do I owe the honor?”
His tone and gaze were both sharper than when he’d opened the door, and I thought it wouldn’t do to underestimate Randolph Blakely.
“How are you doing?” Maurice asked.
“Do you mean am I sober? Clean?” Randolph’s gaze mocked Maurice, and I saw a little of Turner in the way his mouth curled up at one side. “Yes. If you mean am I grieving over my mother’s death, then no, not particularly. She wasn’t much of a mother.” He said it matter-of-factly, and I found his lack of emotion somewhat eerie.
I saw Maurice fighting to control his reaction to the slur on Corinne and jumped in with, “Have the police been out to see you?”
Randolph’s gaze slid to me. “As a matter of fact, they have,” he said, “although I’m not sure what business it is of yours.”
“Um…”
Before I could think of a reply, Maurice said, “Did Corinne visit you as usual last Sunday?”
“She thought coming out here once a week made up for all the times she was gone when I was growing up.” Grievance seeped from Randolph like gas from a sewer pipe.
I wanted to say, You’re fifty-plus years old; get over it already, but I held my tongue. I thought I’d read somewhere that addicts had a habit of blaming others for their weaknesses. “Did she say anything about the memoir she was writing?” I asked.
The teakettle shree-ed and Randolph pushed himself up to remove it from the burner. “She was always going on about her precious manuscript,” Randolph said, plunking a teabag into a mug and hefting the kettle in a silent question. Maurice and I shook our heads and he poured the steaming water, slopping some of it onto the counter. “She wanted my blessing on the chapters that dealt with me and my illness, as she called it.”
“Did she show them to you?” Maurice asked. I shot him an approving look.
“Just talked about what she was going to write,” Randolph said. “How she was too young when I was born, unprepared for motherhood. How when my father died she was ‘cast adrift, emotionally untethered.’ Those are the phrases she used. How she tried to provide me with loving stepfathers-of which you were the first,” he told Maurice, stirring a teaspoon of honey into his tea and rejoining us at the table. “Too bad she divorced you before I was old enough to remember you. Judging by the others, you were probably the best of the lot.”
Wow, the acid bottled up in this man would etch granite. Maurice looked shell-shocked, so I asked, “Did she mention anything else about the book? What she might be saying about other people she knew?”
Randolph’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute… are you saying you think she was killed because of something she wrote?”
Maurice and I exchanged glances but didn’t say anything.
“That’s rich.” Randolph gave a phlegmy chuckle, like bubbling mud.
“You disagree?” I asked. “Several people seem nervous about what might have been in her book; one even broke into her house trying to get hold of the manuscript.”
“Really?” He looked mildly interested. Downing half his tea, despite the fact that steam still curled from it, he licked his lips. “Who?”
I hesitated a moment, but then decided there was no harm in telling him. “Marco Ingelido. I guess he almost became one of your stepfathers.”
He furrowed his brow, the wrinkles looking like grooves drawn in Play-Doh. “The guy who started the dance studio franchise? He was never one of Mother’s ‘special friends.’” He gave the last words a falsetto twist, and I could hear Corinne explaining her lovers to her young son as “Mommy’s special friends.”
“He said they were an item,” Maurice put in, leaning forward so his forearms rested on the table.
“Absolutely not.” Randolph shook his head. “Mother despised him, even before he opened those cheesy studios and ‘dumbed down’ ballroom dance, as she put it.”
“Why?” I asked. Had Marco Ingelido lied to me for some reason, or was Randolph lying now? Or perhaps he wasn’t as tuned in to his mother’s love life as he thought he was.
“Who knows? Mother could hold a grudge like no one else.” His fingers, strangely long and thin for his bulky build, tapped rhythmically against the mug.
Maurice shoved his chair back from the table as if wanting to distance himself from Corinne’s son and his negative view of his mother. “If you don’t think Corinne was murdered because of her memoir, who do you think did it?”
“That’s easy.” He looked down into his mug, but not before I caught the glint of malice in his eyes. “My only offspring, the fruit of my loins. Turner.”
I gasped and I could tell my response pleased Randolph.
“You’re accusing your own son?” Maurice asked, incredulous.
“One of the things they teach you in these sorts of places”-he waved a hand to indicate the greater Hopeful Morning Rehabilitation Center-“is to see clearly, to give up illusions and excuses and live honestly. Well, I’ve found it’s easier to live honestly if one doesn’t have to deal with one’s family too often. Ergo, my present living arrangements.” A wry smile twisted his lips. “Distance-physical and emotional-helps with honesty, too. I’ve had a clear-eyed view of Turner for some time now. I gave up on him the third time he was expelled for cheating.”
“Corinne never gave up on you,” Maurice said, anger and repulsion warring on his face.
“More fool she.”
Ten seconds went by before I managed to say, “Do you have a particular reason for thinking Turner did it? Did he say something
to you, do something suspicious?”
“I haven’t seen or heard from him since I came to Hopeful Morning almost a year ago. I just know what he is. And I know Mother was concerned about his debt load and his lifestyle.”
A lawn mower started up outside, its buzz cutting into the room. Glancing through the window on my right, I spotted a young woman watering potted begonias in the “haven” next door. She waved when she caught me looking, and I smiled in response. I wondered what addiction had brought her to Hopeful Morning. I’d suddenly had enough of the hopeless Randolph Blakely. I rose. Maurice jumped to his feet as if he’d been waiting for a signal to depart. When Randolph stayed seated, Maurice and I made for the front door to show ourselves out. As we walked under the arched doorway that led to the hall, Maurice turned back. “Where were you this past Tuesday?”
Randolph got up and put his mug in the sink. With his back to us, he said, “I didn’t kill Mother.” His voice was muffled and I wondered whether he was crying. But when he turned to face us, his eyes were clear. “I was here. I’m always here. I don’t even have a car.”
Unsatisfied and unsettled, I tugged at Maurice’s hand and we left, shutting the door to Hollyhock Haven quietly behind us. I wondered whether we were closing Randolph in or closing the world out. It didn’t matter. The woman from the cottage next door was watering flowers in the front yard, and she gave us a big smile. I saw she wasn’t quite as young as she’d looked from the window-maybe in her mid-thirties. Fine, light brown hair wisped around her face, and she shoved it off her forehead with her wrist.
“It’s so nice that Randolph’s getting so many visitors these days,” she said in a breathy voice, stepping closer to us and pouring water on a thirsty-looking rosebush. “For a long time, it was just his mom, on Sundays, but now it seems like every time I turn around he’s got more folks stopping by. It’s good to see him rejoining the world, as it were. So helpful with… well, you know… when you’ve got a good support group. I’m very lucky that my husband and my friends have all stuck by me.” She paused, as if inviting us to ask about the reason for her presence at the rehab center. When Maurice dropped his gaze to the path and I just stared at her, completely unaware of the etiquette for these sorts of situations, she said, “I’m going home next week and I know everything’s going to be fine. I’m going to be fine.”
“Great,” I said, a shade too heartily. “I’m sure Randolph will be fine, too, especially now that his friends are gathering around. Who all have you met?” Maurice winced almost imperceptibly beside me, and I wondered whether I was being too blatant, but the woman looked happy to gossip.
“Oh, I haven’t met any of them, not if you mean been formally introduced. People here are cautious about ‘boundaries,’ you know.” She made air quotes with her fingers, sloshing water out of her small watering pot, and twisted her face in a way that told us what she thought of boundaries. “But I figure the blond woman must be a girlfriend-although she wears a wedding ring. Naughty, naughty.”
I exchanged a look with Maurice and he shrugged, clearly as clueless as I was.
“And the painfully skinny gentleman-his uncle, maybe? The man didn’t look old enough to be Randy’s father. Or I suppose he could be a friend or former business partner. They didn’t really act like they were family, now that I think about it. Of course, some families are awfully stiff around one another, aren’t they?” Her bright gaze invited us to agree with her.
I nodded. “When did you see them? Were they together?”
Maurice nudged me with his elbow, but I stood my ground, trying to figure out who the man and woman could be.
“Oh, I’ve never seen them together. The woman’s been here a few times that I’ve noticed. I saw her last, oh, this past Monday? I’ve only seen the skinny man once, and that was Saturday. I remember because I was just coming back from therapy and Dr. Neston had told me he thought I was ready. Ready to leave, ready to rejoin my family.” Her eyes lit up at the memory. “Well, I was so excited that I was skipping down the path, and I bumped right into the gentleman as he was coming through Randy’s gate. I apologized, of course, and said something about what a beautiful day it was. He mumbled something about it being too hot-he had a lovely accent-and kept going.”
A thin beep-beep sound cut through her recital. Setting down the watering pot, she tapped a button on her watch and said, “It was lovely talking to you, but I’ve got to go. Group!”
“Good luck with…” I wasn’t sure what to wish her good luck with-returning home? Beating her addiction? I petered out awkwardly, but she seemed to know what I was saying and gave me a brilliant smile.
“Thanks.”
The woman returned to the cottage and Maurice and I set off briskly down the path, not discussing the woman’s revelations, me out of a completely unrealistic fear that Randolph would overhear us. Maurice, I suspected, because he was still embarrassed about the way I’d encouraged the woman to gossip. Maurice kept pace with me easily and we both breathed sighs of relief when we entered the air-conditioned cool of the main building. We saw no one as we crossed the foyer, exited through the front door, and climbed into my Beetle. Cranking up the engine and the AC, I reversed out of the parking lot and spun gravel from beneath the tires as I turned into the long driveway. I had to wait for a bus to pass before I could make the turn onto the main road.
The AC sucked up some of the bus’s diesel exhaust and I coughed. A thought hit me. “Just because Randolph doesn’t have a car doesn’t mean he was stuck here in the boonies,” I said, pointing at the bus.
“Too true, Anastasia,” Maurice said. “And it crossed my mind that if Corinne visited him last Sunday as usual, he could have substituted the doctored pills for the ones in her purse without ever having to leave the grounds.”
“You’re right.” I looked at him with respect. “Do you think he did it?”
Sadness weighed down Maurice’s face. “There was certainly no love lost there,” he said. “It has always distressed Corinne that she didn’t have a better relationship with Randolph. I think that’s partly why she went out of her way to help Turner, to be part of his life.”
“Do you think Randolph knew about Corinne’s will, or could he have expected to inherit her estate?”
“Corinne said she discussed it with him a couple of years back,” Maurice said, rolling down his window to let fresh air and the scent of mown hay into the car. “She said he took the news well, seemed grateful even.”
“Hm.” I had doubts about how grateful anyone would be at hearing they weren’t going to inherit tens of millions. A Machiavellian thought struck me. “Would he do it to help his son? Kill Corinne so Turner could inherit? He knew Turner needed money.”
Maurice looked at me, aghast. “That’s an awful thought, Anastasia.”
“Who do you suppose his visitors were? Did you recognize the descriptions?”
“That woman was too nosy,” Maurice said disapprovingly. “I don’t know if we can trust anything she said.”
“We’ve no reason not to,” I pointed out. “I haven’t got a clue about who the blond woman is, but it sounded to me like the skinny man with the accent might be that man at the will reading-”
“Hamish MacLeod.” Maurice nodded.
“Why would Corinne’s third husband-”
“Fourth.”
“-be visiting Randolph?”
“I have no earthly idea,” Maurice admitted. “Although it’s possible that they had some sort of relationship. Randolph was still living at home-he must have been in his late teens-when Corinne married Hamish. He lasted longer than most of us, too; they were married for almost eighteen years, if I remember correctly.”
We drove on in silence until we had almost reached Maurice’s house. When I pulled to the curb, he reached over to squeeze my hand. “Thanks, Anastasia. It doesn’t seem like we learned much, but I appreciate your help.” He looked tired and beaten down, not his usual energetic, full-of-vim-and-vigor self. Grief and
worry were taking a toll.
“Maybe we learned more than we realized,” I said with a “keep your chin up” smile. As Maurice plodded toward his front door and I drove off, I vowed to look more closely at Turner Blakely. If his own father thought he was capable of murder, I wanted to learn more about how and why he’d moved in with his grandmother mere days before she died.
Chapter 19
Rather than drive home, I pointed the Beetle toward D.C. and Lavinia Fremont’s shop. I needed to pick up the dress I was wearing for the Olympic exhibition tomorrow; she’d said it would be ready today. It being Sunday, I found a parking spot without too much trouble and passed a gaggle of well-dressed people emerging from the Baptist church a block from Lavinia’s place. Some of the women wore hats decked with flowers or feathers or grosgrain ribbons, and I wondered idly why virtually no one wore hats anymore.
The shops around Lavinia’s were quiet on a Sunday, and a “closed” sign hung on Lavinia’s door. A sheath wedding gown in a rich cream had replaced the lavender ball gown in the window.
“Why did hats go out of fashion?” I asked Lavinia when she opened the shop’s door to my knock. Her red hair was pulled back into a club of a ponytail, emphasizing the hollows under her eyes and her sharp nose, and she wore a sheer black blouse over a black cami and skinny cropped pants. I thought she looked more tired than she had on Thursday, and I wondered whether grief was causing her to lose sleep.
Her thin brows arched upward, but she said, “Because they take up too much room in the closet. Shoes and purses are bad enough, but hats meant hatboxes for storage, and even two or three of those boxes-pretty as they were-could eat up all your closet shelf space.”
“I never thought of that.”
