Skirting the Grave

by Annette Blair

  When the side door of the carriage house flew unexpectedly open and slammed against the building, Grand-mère jumped.

  Eve stepped out, wearing Grand-mère’s yellow sleeveless boatneck dress with the embroidered bands, carrying my niece, Kelsey.

  Nick went up to her and demanded “the child.”

  “Twenty-five grand,” Eve said, holding out her hand.

  Nick slapped a fake check into it. Eve gave him the baby, went back into the carriage house, and Nick walked away.

  The tableau might never have taken place.

  Nevertheless, Grand-mère stood frozen. “Twen—” She cleared her throat. “Twenty-five thousand dollars?” Her voice quavered.

  “What?” I asked.

  Her gaze snapped up to mine, her expression haunted. “Nothing.”

  I patted her hand. “Care for a flask of whiskey?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “A glass of punch,” I said. “Are you thirsty?”

  “No thank you.” Sweat had formed on her upper lip.

  Eventually, we passed a tree with two fake gravestones beneath it. On the opposite side, revealed as we passed, stood a woman wearing a long-sleeved black swirl dress, hat veil over her face, head averted, leaning on a shovel.

  Grand-mère stumbled, but I helped her catch her balance. She fumbled in her purse for a handkerchief, thank the stars, and when she looked back, the model and the gravestones had disappeared.

  “Isobel told me about her grandfather.” Beat, beat, beat. “Imagine disappearing like that . . .” beat ”. . . as if in a puff of smoke, never to be heard from again.”

  Grand-mère looked daggers at me, not a little frightening. That deadly focus hadn’t ended well the last time.

  I fluffed my hair, the sign for help. I couldn’t take a chance that she still carried a revolver all these years later. She looked that wild-eyed.

  Nick and Isobel stepped up beside us, the old lady trembling visibly.

  Isobel took her grandmother’s purse and clutched it to her chest.

  We watched Nick escort Grand-mère back toward the house. It looked like he got her talking, and once he did, she didn’t seem to want to stop.

  Nick would call Werner if she confessed, which I deeply hoped she would. I was almost sorry I’d spooked her so badly. But, well, several people had died, now. If not for Ruben Rickard, her illegitimate son—if my guess was correct—her legitimate granddaughter, Payton, might still be alive.

  “Boss,” Isobel said, “that little show you set up spooked the hell out of my grandmother. What do you know that I don’t?”

  I squeezed Isobel’s opposite shoulder in a half hug. “Well, sweetie, that’s the sad part. I don’t know a thing. Only Grand-mère does, and she may never tell.”

  Thirty-six

  A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off you.

  —FRANÇOISE SAGAN

  It had been an afternoon filled with pointy bras, poodle skirts, off-the-shoulder sweaters, roller skates, and carousel rides.

  The evening was another story.

  My outfit consisted of a long black lace evening gown over cream satin, figure-hugging, V-neck, strapless.

  The orchestra played through dinner and after.

  I had danced the first dance with Nick, gorgeous in an Armani tux, and not a bad dancer, even to “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

  Werner, yummy in his tux, arrived in time to claim me for a later dance, the “Tennessee Waltz.”

  “Sorry I missed dinner. Late break in the case.” His hand at my back hesitated when he found bare skin. Then he skimmed the entire area to the exposed base of my spine before he worked his way back up, as if memorizing the shape of it with the tips of his fingers.

  “If I have a heart attack,” he whispered, “you’ll hold me up, right?”

  I stepped back to look at him. “Why would you do that?”

  “You’re wearing black lace stenciled on bare skin. Kinda hard on a man. Good thing you’re not up for bid.”

  “Would I bring a pretty penny?”

  “You don’t need to fish for compliments, just wipe the drool off my chin now and again, so no one else sees it, ’kay?”

  He twirled me fast and unexpectedly, and I laughed.

  “I hate to ruin this moment with shop talk,” he said against my ear, “but I need to take my mind off you beneath that dress. The old lady, Grand-mère, the candidate’s mother; she shed a lot of light on the case, today. Nick called for backup and met us outside the gates with her so as not to cause a scene.”

  “Really?” I actually hadn’t known that. “Tell me what happened.”

  “You won’t believe it. At first she was confused, talked about seeing things. Then she said since Payton had been killed she thought that maybe a few things needed to be cleared up. I get the impression that something you did reminded her of her obligation in that regards, but I’m not clear on that. And neither was she.”

  I shrugged. “What did she say?”

  “She told me that she gave birth to a third son, but her husband was a good-for-nothing drunk. She couldn’t afford another mouth to feed, so she sold it to a rich Newport family for twenty-five grand. Not a good way to make a buck, not legal either, but she fed her two boys for a long time, she said, and she invested wisely and grew her nest egg to its present size.”

  “That explains the canceled check in the file the Feds found in Rickard’s house,” I said. “He must have had to do some deep and dirty investigating to get his hands on that.”

  “That’s exactly what it was, and yes, some breaking and entering in his background might have played into his investigation of his roots, because it was originally supposed to be a closed adoption. Looks like the candidate’s brother killed his own niece,” Werner murmured. “Explains the rare blood type match, though.”

  “Sure does.”

  “Anyway,” he said, “according to the records, the family she sold him to never did adopt him. He’s listed as being a problem child, prone to losing his temper and assaulting other children.”

  “I don’t believe he changed much,” I said, “and he only added fury and resentment of his biological family to his list of grievances with the world.”

  “The people who ‘bought’ him gave Rickard to social services as a toddler. I agree that Rickard’s motive was probably a long-held grudge over being sold. But why kill Payton, the poor embezzler’s daughter. Why not the favorite twin, the rich one? Make a profit?”

  “Which one’s the favorite?” I asked. “In your opinion.”

  “Personally, I think it should be your intern, but she thinks her twin’s the favorite.”

  “Yeah, Isobel does think Giselle is the favorite. So what did the old lady do with her drunk husband, divorce him?”

  “No, that’s the sad part. He came after her with a broken bottle in a drunken rage one night, and she shot him. Killed him in self-defense. She even told us where she buried him.”

  “Wow, so, no arrest, then?”

  “Not yet, but she’s already on the psych ward at the Mystick Falls Hospital for evaluation. We thought we’d tell her son tomorrow. They’re not that close, and no need to ruin Brandy’s night.”

  “Why a psych eval?” I asked, looking for his tip-off.

  “Ah, she said it all happened again today. That’s what made her step forward. She saw a baby being sold for twenty-five grand, a dozen brazen carhops, a woman with a shovel at the cemetery; they were signs, she said. That’s when she knew she had to clear her conscience.”

  And a dandy job she did. Not. No mention of carhopping or bed-hopping or of shooting hubby in cold blood. She’d come out squeaky clean, except for burying the old man on her own. On the other hand, after all these years, she might have come to believe in her own innocence.

  “What have we got for loose ends now?” I asked.

  “What? Sorry, I’m distracted by your naked waist beneath this thing.”

  “Well,
get your hand out of there. There’s nothing to find. This is the kind of dress you want against your bare skin.”

  “You had to tell me that?”

  “Talk to me. We don’t know why Payton or Rickard are dead. And we haven’t found Giselle.”

  “Way to throw cold water on a guy.”

  “You asked for it.” I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder.

  “What’s bothering you, kiddo?” Werner asked. “Not that I don’t love having you this close.”

  “Payton’s cremation’s bothering me. Why would Giselle go so far as to cremate her cousin, even if she did kill her? Why not let the family bury her?”

  “Rickard might have done it,” Werner said. “Partners in crime often have partings of the way. Maybe he and Giselle broke up.”

  “Yeah, well, they were uncle and niece, so one would hope so.”

  “Broke up the gang, I mean,” Werner said. “The gang. Let’s assume he had enough ethics to treat Giselle like a niece.”

  “Anyway, that’s not it,” I said, biting the inside of my lip for a minute. “It’s . . . the obliteration. No way to look back. Makes me think there was something else to hide.”

  The music stopped, Brandy took the microphone, and we sat down. She gave a formal welcome from the Nurture Kids Foundation and told us a bit about the cause with a PowerPoint presentation going on behind her. Just enough show-and-tell to make us open our purses . . . for tissues and checkbooks.

  After her individual and profuse thanks, my sister invited the bachelors up for bid to gather in the room off the ballroom. Werner, Nick, Kyle, Cort, Candidate York, and my dad, among others, left looking like they were going to their own hangings.

  We were all women now at our table, and we had a good laugh over their plight, most planning on winning their own men.

  Except for Isobel and me. The two of us decided, between us, to mix it up a bit—mix up the couples, I mean. Have some fun.

  Thirty-seven

  Fashion anticipates, and elegance is a state of mind . . . a mirror of the time in which we live, a translation of the future, and should never be static.

  —OLEG CASSINI

  Sherry’s husband, Justin, as master of ceremonies, brought out Dolly Sweet on a wheeled stool and set her before the mike on the opposite side of the stage from him, to introduce the bachelors. She wore the Katharine Hepburn gown I’d given her, and she looked grand.

  A brilliant and inspired choice, Dolly could be as bawdy as she wanted, and everyone would be charmed.

  Dolly gave a signal to dim the applause and eyed my brother-in-law. “I know you belong to Sherry, cupcake, but you’ll make sure I don’t roll off the stage, won’t you, sweet thing?”

  Justin bowed her way. “Cupcake on duty.”

  Dolly picked up her notes. “Our bidding starts this evening with the one and only Justin Vancortland IV, our generous and hunky host for the evening, and the father of cupcake, over here. Let’s give our benefactor a rousing round of applause.”

  We gave Cort a standing ovation, while Brandy slipped into a seat at our table.

  “Ready for the bidding, Sis?” I asked her.

  She grabbed my hand on one side and Sherry’s on the other. “I’ve never been so nervous in my life. I don’t even know if he wants me to bid on him.”

  “Sure you do,” I said. “I saw the way he looked at you while you were dancing.”

  Brandy grinned, a rare and wonderful sight.

  Isobel escorted Cort onstage—that was her task for the evening, bachelor escort—and Dolly read Cort’s bio. “When not overseeing his railroad companies, Cort can be found proudly escorting his granddaughter Vanessa around town. Oh, and he wanted me to say he can’t wait to install that second baby seat in his car.”

  Dolly chuckled. “You’re my kind of man, Cort. For his auction date, ladies, Cort will take you for a leisurely sail on the Mystic River, where you’ll share an intimate gourmet dinner at sunset.”

  Justin V, Sherry’s husband, gave his podium over to a professional auctioneer.

  Dolly raised her paddle. “I’d like to start the bidding on this young buck with a grand.”

  The bidding escalated and ended with Cort escorting Brandy offstage. He’d gone for ten grand. A good beginning for the event, and probably Brandy’s life savings, but she acted like he was so worth it. It was also possible that the foundation bankrolled her to get things off to a hefty start.

  My father came up for bid next. His offered date: a weekend in the Finger Lakes. Sure, everyone in Mystick Falls knew, after our parents named us Sherry, Brandy, and Madeira, that my father could get real sexy after a day at the Finger Lakes wineries.

  And though Fiona should probably resent his lack of originality, she became blatantly outrageous and ferocious in her bidding. Twenty thousand dollars went to the Nurture Kids Foundation for Harry Cutler, mildmannered English professor.

  “I hope Dad doesn’t stroke out,” I told Sherry.

  She giggled; we both did. My father was such a private, frugal man. The look on his face at Fiona’s winning bid was priceless but nothing to his reaction when she kissed him right there in front of God and the gossips of Mystick Falls.

  “Talk about making a claim,” I said.

  “Yeah, but look,” Sherry said. “Dad’s cooperating.”

  “Go, Dad!” My sisters and I whistled, yelled, applauded, and cheered.

  He zoomed in on us and waved, one brow raised, a promise of retribution in his half smile.

  “Well,” Dolly said, “it’s about damned time, Harry, with your car always in Fee’s driveway.”

  We screamed at the double entendre, and my dad went over and bussed Dolly right on the lips.

  “Well, shut my mouth,” Dolly said. “Congratulations, Fiona!”

  My father escorted a laughing Fiona off the stage.

  A shapely female latecomer walked in and took an empty chair across the room. Somebody who liked to make an entrance or wanted to be seen by this audience in particular. Dressed to kill in what looked like it could be Armani Privé, the stunner had lush long black hair with a blue streak rippling down her back. Her thick, heavy makeup was a fashion faux pas, but her long legs looked great in those strappy Manolo Blahniks.

  I was so focused on her, I failed to realize that Werner was up for bid. When I knew and still failed to bid, Eve poked me one time too many, the last time, so sharply she knocked the paddle out of my hand, grabbed it before me, raised it, and outbid a blonde for sixteen thousand five hundred dollars, winning Werner in my name.

  I hadn’t wanted to stoke the gossips, but there I was claiming my cop off the stage to Eve’s whistles and catcalls.

  “There’s my Maddie,” Dolly said, in case the world didn’t already know, “getting her man. Nick, my boy, you gotta step it up a notch.”

  Eve’s cheer broke the awkward silence, and I applauded to get everyone going while Werner and I made our way back to our table. Ah heck, it was worth the money to make him so happy. My former friend Eve, however, was another matter. She’d totally ruined Isobel’s and my plan to mix it up. So I pulled a similar stunt when Nick came up for bid by throwing a red shawl over Eve’s shoulders. You’d think it was yellow paint the way she stood and raised her arms to shrug it off, paddle in hand.

  She ended up paying twenty-two grand for a man she couldn’t stand. Well, for charity, and we all knew it. You wouldn’t know it to look at Eve, and especially not at her frugal mother, but Mystick Falls was not an inexpensive community to live in. The Meyerses came from a long line of German toy manufacturers, and they were loaded. They simply preferred not to spend it.

  Dolly started the bid at a grand for each and every man, to raise the foundation’s profits, I was sure. Meanwhile, the women took to laughing or heckling her every time she raised her paddle.

  “Hey, you can’t want them all,” one woman yelled.

  “Listen, chickie,” Dolly said. “I’m nearly a hundred and four, and I wanna go
out smiling.”

  Isobel won Kyle, to Eve’s dismay, so Isobel’s half of the “mix it up” plan worked, and then she went back to work onstage. The world ran amok, the foundation made a profit, and Dolly had a blast.

  When Candidate Quincy York finally came up for bid, the room went wild. Every woman there knew he didn’t belong to anybody. This was a free-for-all, and the Nurture Kids Foundation would benefit big time.

  For York, the conspicuous latecomer raised her paddle often and countered every bid. Finally she stood, and the room stilled. “One hundred thousand dollars.”

  Nobody applauded at first except Brandy, Justin, and Dolly, but after the shock wore off, confetti rained down from the ceiling, signaling the successful end of the auction.

  The winner went onstage to claim York, and on their way offstage, she somehow hooked arms with Isobel, so the three of them disappeared together.

  York had been the final bachelor, the pièce de résistance, so heck, maybe Isobel made the first move. I hadn’t been watching that closely.

  We ordered another round of drinks to celebrate, except for Nick and Eve, who were furious with me, Sherry who had a backache and asked Justin to take her home, and Tricia, also pregnant, who thought going home was a fine idea, so she and my brother, Alex, left as well.

  When the orchestra started again, I stood to look for Isobel, and when I didn’t see her, York, or his winner, panic rushed through me. I grabbed Nick’s hand, then Werner’s, and pulled them out of their chairs and didn’t let go until they followed me on their own, at a near run across the ballroom.

  Eve and Kyle got up and followed.

  I looked behind the stage, we all did, but York wasn’t there, and neither was Isobel or the winning bidder.

  Giselle?

  Thirty-eight

  In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.