“The original kitchen,” Manville announced. “It needs renovation but I spend most of my time in town. Don’t see the point.”
“This is an interesting piece.” Sky was studying a massive trestle table that dominated the L-shaped kitchen. Something about the weathered wood brought to mind an old whaling bar on Nantucket called The Brotherhood of Thieves. During her year on the island, when Sky couldn’t stand the isolation another second, she’d leave the house on Brant Point and jog to the bar for a burger and curly fries. And blueberry bread pudding, if she was extra hungry. The brick hearth and low, ancient beams of the tavern’s dark basement felt like stepping back in time two hundred years.
“You like this table? Let me show you something.” Manville pulled a captain’s chair aside and pointed underneath. “It has a false center. Go ahead. Push on that panel. There’s a hidden spring.” He pointed to a flat expanse of wood.
Sky dropped to her knees and poked her head beneath the table. She pressed and the panel sprang open. She stuck an arm inside and felt around. The compartment was surprisingly roomy, three feet wide, maybe two feet deep.
“Escaped slaves from the south hid in there,” Manville said. “Part of the Underground Railroad.”
“Seriously? The Underground Railroad?” Sky imagined a frightened human being curled up inside. Afraid. Waiting to be discovered. How many slaves had hidden in this tiny box? How many had been caught, sent back to their owners?
Sky shut the panel and got to her feet.
“So the realtor claimed. Texas was part of the Confederacy, so …” Manville gave a disinterested shrug. “This table came with the place.”
Sky wanted to ask more questions, she’d never seen anything like it. But Manville had moved on.
Pulling a champagne bottle from a silver ice bucket at the far end of the table, he said, “From my private collection. A ’97 Bollinger, made entirely from the pinot noir grape.” He filled Sky’s flute. “Very old vines. Only thirty-five cases made it to the states this year. What do you think? I respect your opinion.”
As she sipped, Sky imagined Nicolette in this house, in this kitchen. Did the graduate student share a glass of champagne with Manville, loose red hair flowing down her back?
Did she flirt with him? Flatter him? Fuck him in the sun room?
Sky plopped down in the captain’s chair and dropped the brass knuckles on the table. “Tiffany’s dinnertime,” she explained. She released the wriggling Shih Tzu to the floor and let the backpack slide to the table. “Her food is somewhere in this mess.”
Sky made a noisy production of emptying the backpack’s contents: purple make-up bag, tube of MOR Nordica hand crème, gold hairbrush, a dog-eared issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Tiffany’s leash (decorated with tiny skulls), a zip-lock baggie of Little Bites Purina dog chow, and, finally, two pastel folders, one pale pink and the other lime green.
Across the front of each folder, scrawled in large black caps, was the word HOMICIDE. Sky tossed the pink folder on the table to her left and the green folder to her right. “Do you have a bowl?”
Manville handed her a shallow saucer and she glimpsed a lapis lazuli oval adorning the French cuff of his immaculate white shirt.
The perfect touch. So tasteful.
“By the way, Porter. I ran across an interesting article the other day.” Sky picked up the medical journal and read a title out loud: “The influence of selective reports of antidepressant trials on apparent efficacy.” She glanced up.
Manville didn’t say anything but he seemed to be bracing himself.
“Anyway,” Sky continued, “the author describes how drug companies only publish experiments when they work. But they never publish the ones that show the drugs are ineffective. Is that what you do?”
“We run pilot studies,” he said. “By the time we get to the actual experiments we’re able to predict the results with surprising accuracy.”
“Well,” Sky set the magazine on the table and picked up the baggie of kibble. “The author doesn’t come right out and say it, but it seems pretty clear. He thinks antidepressants don’t work. He even suggests that the pharmaceutical industry – your industry – is deliberately deceiving the public.”
“One man’s view.” Manville deflected the criticism with a shrug.
“I’m not coming down on one side or the other, Porter. Just thought you might have an opinion.” Sky paused for effect. “The magazine’s editorial board found his paper compelling. Just saying.”
She unzipped the baggie and studied the kibble as she spoke. “The unpublished studies were practically impossible to find. They had to go through FDA databases, or find hidden data under the Freedom of Information Act.” She stirred the yellow and red pea-sized bits, interspersed among nuggets shaped like tiny dog bones. “Then there’s the placebo data. Eighty percent of people get better with just a sugar pill. What do you think that means?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Did you know one in ten Americans now takes an antidepressant? Spending on the drugs has increased a hundred and thirty percent. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Fascinating.” Manville ignored the medical journal and gestured toward the pastel files. “What are those?”
“Those?” Sky waved a dismissive hand. “Just some Heartbreak Hill papers. That’s a log of my consulting hours,” she pointed to the green folder with one hand and dribbled a handful of kibble into the bowl with the other. “The pink folder is a transcript.”
Sky set the food on the floor. Crunching noises emanated from beneath the trestle table, Tiffany had a lusty appetite. Manville was silent.
“Could we bother you for a bowl of water?” Sky watched him pull a second saucer out of the cupboard and fill it from the tap. His movements were relaxed but Sky sensed a heightened alertness.
“An eyewitness came forward,” she said, taking the saucer of water. “Some homeless guy claims he was sleeping in the woods across from Bullough’s Pond, not twenty feet from the Heartbreak Hill crime scene.”
“A homeless man?” Manville’s face was expressionless.
“Um hm.” Sky set Tiffany’s water on the floor. “Claims he saw the murder. That’s his transcript, in the pink folder. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.”
The eyewitness story was a fabrication. Sky had prepped the files back at the office, it was an old trick: Bait the suspect with phony information and watch the eyes – an innocent person would show no interest in either folder. The pale pink file with the eye-witness transcript was a magnet for the guilty.
“But you’re off the case.” Manville’s eyes darted to the pink folder and back to Sky.
“True. But it’s hard to switch gears. Such an interesting murder. This killer really knew what he was doing. Didn’t leave much in the way of evidence.” Sky struck an earnest tone. “That homeless guy is a lucky break for the homicide team.”
“They’ve arrested the musician,” Manville spoke in a monotone. “The boyfriend killed her.”
“Oh, let’s not talk shop.” Sky tossed the brass knuckles, the gold brush and the phony folders in the zebra-print backpack and smiled. “You’re right, Porter. I’m off the case. Why throw good time after bad?” She shoved in the lotion and the make-up bag and closed the zipper with gusto. “Let’s finish the grand tour!”
“Let me take your coat.” Manville laid a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s chilly in here,” she said, pulling away. “I’ll keep it on.”
“You should pick up that dog. I wouldn’t want to step on it. Probably best to put it in your car while we eat.”
“I couldn’t possibly.” Sky scooped Tiffany up from the floor. “The poor thing has abandonment issues.” She made a silent vow to keep Tiffany close for the remainder of the evening.
The phony folders were doing their work. Manville had grown sullen, almost brooding.
“This champagne is quite good,” Sky said. “Tastes like the wild raspberries in my grandmother’s herb ga
rden.” She followed a subdued Manville down shallow steps to a finished basement. Tracks of an elaborate Lionel train set looped and coiled along the periphery of a paneled room that held, among other things, a regulation pool table. On the wall behind the fully furnished bar was a crude folk art rendering of a decapitated female in pilgrim garb holding a tray of beer. The sign read Silent Woman.
Sky’s finger continued to work the redial button on her cell but she was beginning to have doubts. Had the Papa Razzi server given Teddy an accurate account? Maybe the phone number wasn’t Manville’s after all.
“I thought we might eat in the conservatory.” Manville led Sky back upstairs and into the living room. Flames from the fireplace cast flickering shadows on his face and she couldn’t make out his expression.
“I’ve ordered in,” he said, leading her to a far wall. “From Menton. Hope you like lamb.” He paused next to a curtained archway that Sky must have overlooked on her way to the sunroom.
“The conservatory.” Manville yanked open a velvet drape.
Sky stepped through the archway onto a wrap-around balcony, astonished to find herself looking out over a remarkable space.
A vaulted ceiling soared fifty feet high, anchored by a grand piano in the room below. The floor was black and white marble, reminiscent of a giant chess board. A stained glass chandelier girded in metallic rods cast a golden blush from above.
It hardly seemed possible that such a room could exist in the split level.
“You can’t see it from the road,” Manville explained, “the house is built into a steep hill. The conservatory always comes as a surprise to visitors.” He gestured toward a series of smallish paintings in ornate gilt frames that lined the balcony wall. “Eighteenth century pastoral,” he said, without enthusiasm. “Came with the place. The last owner was a collector. Something we have in common.”
“What do you collect, Porter?” Sky followed Manville down a narrow staircase to the conservatory floor.
Manville turned his head and offered an enigmatic smile, but said nothing.
The piano, it turned out, was an ebony Steinway the approximate size of a small truck.
“What a beautiful instrument.” Sky ran her fingers along the spotless ivory keys.
“A house-warming gift from my aunt.” Manville appeared indifferent. He pointed to a desk sitting against the west wall. “That’s the only piece of furniture I give a damn about.”
The naked tone of attachment in his voice prompted Sky to move in for a closer look.
It was an Edwardian-style rolltop, burled oak, with elaborate drawers and pigeonholes. Two additional banks of drawers ran down either side. The desk carried the usual assortment: slotted letters, CDs, black Bostich stapler, stray computer cables, a fistful of pens and pencils in a brown leather cup, rubber bands and silver paper clips in a clear Lucite box. Everything neatly in its place. And yet …
Draping from the far right pigeonhole, peeking out beneath a sheaf of yellowed newspaper, Sky spotted a flaxen strand of hair and a small triangle of satin.
She brought Tiffany up to her face and nuzzled the Shih Tzu in an attempt to hide her shock.
The triangle of satin was emerald green.
The same emerald green as the hour-glass shaped bustier in Nicolette’s bedroom. And it carried the same pink ruffled edging.
It was the matching thong. The one that Sky couldn’t find in the wicker basket of lingerie.
“This desk is a mess.” Manville abruptly slid the rolltop down, causing a soft click. “The drawers automatically lock,” he explained. He began to stroke the desk with affection, as though the thing were alive. “These are the original lock and drawer fittings. It belonged to my grandfather. As did this ring.” He held up his right hand and Sky stared at the gold signet, the male lion on hind legs, claws exposed.
His grandfather was Raleigh Porter, she thought. Founder of Raleigh Porter Medical Center. Tempest, Texas.
“Are you and your grandfather close?”
“We were very close,” Manville’s southern drawl reemerged. “He died when I was quite young.”
She’d pushed a button. Sky remembered the plaintive tone of Aunt Olivia’s letter: Please come home. All is forgiven.
“Do you see your family often?” she prodded.
Manville didn’t seem to hear the question. He continued to stroke the desk with a preoccupied look and Sky decided not to press the issue.
Instead, she returned to the Steinway.
Dropping the backpack to the floor, she slid onto the piano bench and settled Tiffany against her right hip. After warming up her fingers with a quick Czerny scale, Sky launched into a piece by Chopin.
Somber chords filled the conservatory and Sky was grateful for the diversion. Playing the piano allowed her to release the jolt of energy she’d suffered at the sight of Nicolette’s green thong.
He said he was a collector. Is that what he collected?
The piano was slightly out of tune but it had a lovely touch. Sky’s fingers worked their way through the Chopin but her eyes were locked on Manville.
The music seemed to break whatever spell he was under because he stopped petting the roll-top. Sky watched his eyes dart to the zebra-print backpack slumped on the marble floor.
The eyewitness account. He wanted that pink folder.
Sky finished the Chopin with an exaggerated flourish and smiled. “Did I hear you say this house is prairie style?”
“Yes.” Manville gave a thoughtful nod across the conservatory.
“That’s interesting,” Sky said, “because I spent a lot of time on the prairie when I was a kid. And I never saw a house like this.”
Manville strolled over and leaned against the piano with his arms folded against his chest. “You’re good,” he said with sincerity. “You’re very good.”
“I could play it in my sleep. It’s a recital piece,” Sky admitted. “Grandmother insisted on lessons. Prelude in E Minor. Not my favorite, really. I prefer his twenty-fourth. The Storm?”
“I wasn’t talking about your piano skills.” He began to twist a lapis cufflink clockwise with thumb and index finger. It was the closest thing to a nervous tic that Sky had observed.
“I find it interesting,” he said, “that you haven’t mentioned the child.”
“What child?”
“The child at Bullough’s Pond. The night of the murder.” He cocked his head. “Fishing?”
Sky studied the gold fonts on the Steinway logo above the piano keys and forced herself to stay motionless.
Manville knew about Molly. It wasn’t in the papers. It wasn’t on the news.
A tightness gripped Sky’s chest and her heart skipped. She tried to will the fear away but it was like trying to stop an ocean wave with her fingers. Beneath her feet, the marble floor grew spongy and unsubstantial. A bead of sweat slid between her breasts.
Sky forced her head up and looked at Manville. He appeared unaware of any change in his guest.
“You’re rather remarkable, Doctor. I confess I’ve never met anyone quite like you.” His fingers continued to worry the lapis cufflink. “Artist, musician, rat runner, homicide. Seems there’s no end to your talents. I’ve never said this to anyone before, but I believe I’ve met my match.”
Sky slid off the bench with the dog in her arms and faced him across the Steinway.
Manville’s face seemed to alter before Sky’s eyes. The prominent brow darkened, the jaw grew sharp. Hollow cheeks gave him a skeletal aspect and Sky tried to analyze the situation, tried to review the last few minutes because she needed to pinpoint the exact moment of transformation.
Was it the pink file? The aborted family discussion? The rolltop desk? The Chopin? The mention of Molly?
Her mind raced and her breathing grew shallow. She tried to pretend that all was well and forced herself to look at Manville straight on.
Pale eyes gazed back at her with pinpoint pupils.
“I’m not really hungry, Por
ter. I think I’ll be off.” Sky croaked the words and leaned down to pick up the backpack. She cleared her throat. “Long day tomorrow. Shopping with Grandmother. I have so much time on my hands now that I’m off the case.”
“Not hungry?” A dark humor registered on the gaunt features. “I can’t let you leave.” His eyes darted to the backpack. “You haven’t seen the wine cellar.”
“I’m feeling a little sick.” Sky held Tiffany in her left arm and slipped the backpack over her right shoulder. “I need to use your bathroom.” She reached a trembling hand into the right pocket of the London Fog. It was a generous pocket lined with satin fabric, allowing her to manipulate the phone without detection. Sky felt for the redial button and pressed the number one last time.
Seconds later, she detected a faint but persistent ring.
The phone was somewhere in the conservatory.
Manville’s head jerked in the direction of the west wall and the amused smile faded. Shoving a hand in the pocket of his khakis, he headed toward the rolltop and Sky heard the soft jangle of metal on metal.
At the last moment, Manville hesitated. He stood in front of the desk with a key ring in his hand and gave Sky a remote stare.
He keeps the phone in the rolltop, she thought. With the green satin thong.
They contemplated each other across the conservatory while dust motes floated in the glow of the chandelier. Piercing and unrelenting, the sound of the phone bit through wood and dead air and Sky could swear she heard Nicolette’s voice. Help me.
“Take that call, Porter.” Sky sauntered to the stairway but she could sense Manville’s reluctance to let her out of his sight.
He’s torn, she thought. Me or the phone. Which will he choose?
“I need to take this call.” Manville waved Sky toward the south wall. “There’s a bathroom across from the wine cellar.” He jabbed at the desk lock with a key.
“I’ll use the black tiled bathroom on the second floor.” Sky tried for a casual attitude as she hit the conservatory steps. “The one with the pink fixtures.” She wore a frozen smile and paced herself up the staircase. Her right palm slipped on the banister rail, wet from sweat. The odor of sulfur permeated the air and Sky’s mind shot to Madame Tatiana’s caravan, the psychic’s warning: Do not venture into strange territory.
The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) Page 32
