“Very well. If I’ve much to do, then I’d better get to bed,” I said, and, obligingly, Helen rose to leave. “But where are Mother and Lydia? You said they’re not in the hotel either?”
“No, after dinner Henry said he’d be spending the evening with his mother, so your mother and Lydia decided to go over to the Manhattan Beach Hotel, to hear a musical program.”
That gave me something more to think about after Helen left. So Henry had chosen to spend the evening with his mother and hadn’t brought Lydia along. Things definitely weren’t going well. What had Ben said? “They’re going to need that inheritance of yours from Grandfather to live on, if Henry Taul bounces away.”
As I changed into my silk nightgown and washed my face and brushed out my hair, I reflected on my feelings about money. If it came to it, of course I would help my mother, and Lydia and Lawrence, by diverting my inheritance income after I turned twenty-one. I wasn’t a selfish monster. It had never occurred to me to shower money on the people at Moonrise Bookstore. No one there had ever hinted at wanting it either, even those few who knew full well about my background, like Sylvie. To suspect the people at Moonrise of fattening me up for the kill was not only offensive – it showed how little they understood the world of books.
It was my family’s behavior, the way they schemed behind my back, which was the problem. It would be best for everyone, me most of all, if Henry Taul married Lydia. Although I’d said I was coming along this summer to help in her quest to marry him, there had quivered a stubborn doubt inside. I just didn’t like the man.
Well, I needed to banish that qualm. If they wed, Mother would have all the money she’d ever need, and I’d be left in peace. I could get my job back at Moonrise Bookstore and hopefully live with my former teacher again, or someone else deemed suitable.
Whatever could be done to nudge the couple in the right direction, I should do it, no matter my personal distaste for Henry Taul.
CHAPTER TEN
It was while getting ready for bed, my fingers full of cream massaged into my elbows, that I had an idea. I could try to see Stefan again after I returned to my job at Moonrise at the end of the summer. Hopefully he would have gotten over his surprise and anger at my pretense. Then I’d be a shop girl again – no ploy. Of course, I’d be a shop girl with a sizable bank account, but that could be dealt with. I’d find a way to meet him again, perhaps a café would do.
In no time my imagination was going wild. I could picture Stefan coming into the store at closing time and whisking me off to dinner. And more than that. As I lay in bed, drifting to sleep, I relived our kiss on the beach.
To think of Stefan at night was one thing, but his face was the first thing I pictured when I woke up, and his words echoed in my head as I ate my breakfast of fresh strawberries and buttered toast Alice brought me with tea. It was unsettling. As pleasant as it was to occupy myself with thoughts of Stefan, we hadn’t parted on the best of terms. In the light of day, I wasn’t that certain I would be a welcome sight to him. I remembered the buxom girl with the red curls on the Coney Island platform, and jealousy curdled.
I joined Mother, Lydia, and Aunt Helen to walk to the croquet grounds reserved for our Independence Day morning. We all wore our croquet skirts, light and full and a good five inches above the ground to accommodate play. I’d found another hat.
We could all see the field as we drew closer. It was marked off at the top of a low hill with a line of trees on one side and a row of shrubbery at the back end, I suppose to give us a sense of privacy while we played. As if a croquet game could be that important.
Lydia asked politely about my evening at Coney Island; I gave her a vague reply. When I reciprocated with a question about her musical evening at the Manhattan Hotel, she said, brightly, “It was lovely. Wonderful pianist. And we met some very nice people. A brother and sister who live on Fifty-Second Street. Mother and I both liked them.”
I had to admire her spirit. Her engagement to Henry Taul was a fraught one, with frustrations of which everyone in the family was all too aware, but she had no intention of letting on how hard this was to cope with, even if it was while walking on the grounds of the hotel in the company of Mother, myself, and Aunt Helen.
Uncle David awaited us, along with the two teenage hotel employees who must have been assigned to our game. When we reached my uncle he smiled, although I spotted dark shadows under his eyes and fresh lines along his cheeks. I wondered what happened last night, how long it had taken him to find his sons and nephew, if indeed he ever had. I expected him to say something about my behavior last night, but he didn’t.
We went about choosing our balls and mallets, gravitating toward our favorite colors. I picked green, as always, and it came back to me then, how this was the game our two families had played all the summers of my childhood. The two brothers, David and Jonathan Batternberg, took a mock-serious competitive attitude toward croquet, while making sure the children had their moments of glory. It was nice to bask in a pleasant memory of Father for a change.
I heard male voices behind me. Turning, I saw my cousin Ben appear, followed by Paul. My heart sank at the sight of Lawrence also walking deferentially behind Ben.
“Someone will have to sit out,” announced Lydia. “Six is the maximum.”
My mother immediately withdrew – since my father had liked croquet, she of course abhorred playing – and we had our six. Mother made herself comfortable in a chair beneath a tree, to watch.
“You first, Lawrence, you’re the youngest,” Uncle David said.
My brother always hated that distinction – of being singled out as the youngest of the grandchildren – and I expected him to scowl, but he didn’t seem to mind today. I glanced at Ben, only to catch him watching me. At the moment, everyone was acting as if they didn’t know I’d broken away from the family in a fury yesterday, and perhaps some of them didn’t know, but there were sure to be words between Ben and myself before Independence Day was over.
Lawrence smacked his mallet against the stick to send his blue ball flying wildly, followed by Lydia, with a much more controlled stroke propelling her yellow ball just where she wanted it to go. Before the next person could launch onto the course, we were joined by Henry Taul.
If my uncle moved slowly, Henry was acting like something plugged into an electrical current. He leaped up the hill to join us, a joke on his lips, his eyes flashing behind his spectacles.
Ben drawled, “I think you need to play next, Henry. There’s no holding you back. Now we can’t have more than six playing, so—”
“I’ll sit out,” offered my Aunt Helen.
“Oh, we can’t have that,” Ben said. “Paul will sit out. The world couldn’t be deprived of seeing your ankles on the croquet field.”
It was a flash of a few seconds, a look exchanged, but what I saw was unmistakable. Helen and her stepson Ben hated each other. Why didn’t my Uncle David do something about this? Without being too obvious, I looked at my uncle. He was fidgeting with his croquet mallet. I wondered if he were deliberately trying to avoid confrontation with his oldest son.
“Be with you in a minute, darling,” Henry shouted to Lydia, who bobbed a little curtsey. Only my sister could curtsey in a croquet skirt and not look ridiculous.
Henry took a mallet but, before hitting his first stroke, he took three deep breaths, as if he were trying to calm down. I wondered what could have excited Henry so, on a summer morning well before ten, to warrant needing to subdue himself enough to hit the black croquet ball. When he did hit the stick, his ball was much like the man: full of force, heading in a direction only he understood.
“And now is the moment for our precious Peggy,” announced Ben.
With that, a rebellion stirred. “Who designated you the boss of the order?” I asked.
“Just trying to be of help,” he said. I took a closer look and noticed Ben had purple shadows under his eyes. It had been a late night for him as well.
“Margar
et, please don’t pick a fight with Ben – we’re trying to have a nice day,” my mother said from her shady retreat.
Pick a fight?
I peered over at Uncle David and his wife, hoping they’d say something, do something to back me. But they were both silent, each of them staring at the grass. Were they actually afraid of Ben?
“Come on, Peggy,” shouted my brother impatiently. “Let’s go!”
It wasn’t my brother, or Ben, or my mother, or my aunt and uncle who forced me back into line, but the sight of my sister, out on the croquet field, not far – but far enough – from Henry. I’d made a decision last night, to do all I could to push these two closer together. My creating a scene this morning wouldn’t serve that goal.
The hotel boy handed me my green ball, I placed it on the other side of the wooden stick driven deep into the soil, took a step back, aimed, and hit it. Mine was the worst stroke yet today, worse than Lawrence’s. It sputtered in a direction nowhere near the first wicket.
Soon enough we were all on the field, taking our turns, accruing advantages, under the July sun. The perspiration gathering on my brow, for it was already a hot day. If not for my hat, tied under my chin, and my long sleeves, I’d probably have turned browner before the game was through. From my spot way out on the field, I could see the staff rolling a cart to our party, with pitchers of iced lemonade and rows of crystal glasses. Heaven forbid the Batternbergs drank anything out of less than perfect glasses. I thought of my beer last night, drunk from an old, chipped mug – that seemed like a different world.
As I once more dissolved into thoughts of Stefan, my ball careened into another’s with a crack. It was Henry Taul’s; the collision gave him a chance for points at my expense if he chose. He stalked toward me, and without saying a word, put his spats-covered foot over my ball, to hold it still while he made his penalty shot. When his mallet swung, it hit my green ball with such power that it sailed across the entire croquet ground, disappearing somewhere past the farthest boundary.
Everyone laughed, though I couldn’t join in as my gaze tracked the direction of my ball. It had vanished. No one else had witnessed up close the intensity with which Henry slammed his mallet.
I couldn’t find my green ball in the grass; I searched and searched. After a minute Henry appeared to join in the hunt, his upper lip damp with perspiration. “You’re a lousy croquet player,” he said.
“Oh, I know,” I answered, not caring one bit. Looking back at the field, I took note of Lydia watching us, her mallet in both her hands. “Lydia’s a fine player.”
“Yes.” His eyes fixed on my sister, he said, “She is superior to you in every way.”
I took a sharp breath. I didn’t want Henry for myself – I hadn’t wanted him in years – but this was so staggeringly rude. And he didn’t even seem to have said it with intent to hurt me. His tone was thoughtful, as if he were reminding himself of something.
“Well, if she is so perfect, then why don’t you set a wedding date with her, Henry?” I said, before I could stop myself. “What on earth are you waiting for?”
He whipped to face me, taking a step closer. His eyes behind those spectacles were dark and malevolent, like a poisonous reptile’s. It was all I could do to suppress a shudder. I found Henry repellent, and it was getting more and more difficult to conceal that.
He turned on his heel and strode back into the thick of the game.
“Don’t wait for Peggy to find her ball – continue playing,” he said.
Not wishing to return to croquet just now, I was glad enough to search for my ball underneath the shrubs. But there was no sign of it. In his athletic frenzy, Henry must have smashed the ball clear off the grounds for play. I felt embarrassed, although why on earth should I? He was the one responsible. I stepped through an opening in the shrubbery to continue the search.
The hill did not extend too much farther past the bushes. From its neat lines of decline, I perceived now that the hill was man made. But there was nothing artificial about the seashore I now faced. I drank in the bracing sting of the salt on the breeze, the smell of sea creatures whose names I didn’t know.
Peering down to the boardwalk, I realized with a rush of pleasure that I wasn’t far from the spot on the beach where I sat with Stefan and drank in the dazzling lights of Dreamland and kissed him. Looking closer, I spotted a group of people gathered around the same wood pilings we’d sat on. Quite a tight little group they were, not far from the water. I watched as a man ran from the boardwalk to join them. I tensed as I took note of the fact that the running man wore a uniform, the dark blue uniform of a New York City policeman. And there was another man in blue, one bending down on his knees in the sand in front of something. He looked distinctly familiar. My heart began a queer, jerky thump.
“Miss, I’ve found your ball,” said a timid voice behind me.
I turned; it was one of the hotel boys assigned to our game. He held my green croquet ball in his right hand.
“Take it to them,” I said, handing him my mallet. “This, too. And tell them I will be back in a moment.”
“Who should I tell?” he asked nervously. My behavior must have struck him as bizarre, and he was unhappy at being the one to have to explain it.
“David Batternberg, Sarah Batternberg, Benjamin Batternberg, it doesn’t matter. Any of them will do.”
With that, I started down the hill, walking on none of the pathways but on the thick green grass, past the geranium beds, breaking into a trot as I headed toward that spot near the water where the people gathered.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
More and more people were gathering on the boardwalk, watching the two policemen confer on the sand, to the left of a smaller group in a tight circle. It was not unlike the crowd that Lawrence and I joined when they found the dead girl under the pier. There must be something extraordinary that they’d found in the sand to warrant summoning the police, but it couldn’t be another corpse. My mind swiftly rejected that possibility. I pushed my way to the front of the group, a few inches from the steps leading to the sand.
What were they looking at? The object of interest, whatever it might be, wasn’t in the water but on the sand, quite near the pilings where I sat with Stefan just about twelve hours ago. I couldn’t see through that knot of people. For a frantic moment, I wondered if we’d left something behind that would draw spectators. But that was ludicrous; the police would not hurry to inspect one of my dropped handkerchiefs, even if I’d lost it. And, the knot in my stomach growing, it would have to be much longer than a handkerchief, based on the circumference of the crowd. At least five feet long.
“Pardon me,” said a man’s voice from behind.
I didn’t move; I had no intention of yielding my place.
A hand tapped my shoulder. “Miss?”
I stiffened and slowly, warily, turned around. The white-haired owner of the hotel, Frank Lancet, stood behind me. “I do need to make my way down there,” he said, apologetically. His eyes traveled down to my croquet skirt. “Were you interrupted by this disturbance? I am terribly sorry.”
I wondered if he knew who I was, or if he just assumed, based on my sporting clothes, I was a guest.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said. “No need for concern.”
He bowed his head and then shuffled past me, lowering himself – with some difficulty, considering his age and girth – onto the beach. He trudged toward the police.
“You know they found a dead woman down there,” said a man behind me.
“Oh, no,” said a woman’s voice, shocked.
“I’ve been here since the first policeman came,” the man replied. “They thought it was a woman sleeping rough, but when they looked closer, she was dead. And she’s young.”
Clearly this was the truth. I’d known it on some level when, from the back of the croquet field, I saw the people gather in a circle in the sand. But I found it terribly hard to accept, not only because this was the second dead woman found on t
he same stretch of Brooklyn beach, but also it was inches away from the spot where Stefan kissed me. There certainly hadn’t been any dead women in the sand then.
There was a selfish part of me churning with resentment over the fact that the place we’d kissed had become the site of a horrible death and therefore spoiled. But beyond that, I was deeply unnerved.
Mr. Lancet trudged to the knot of people surrounding what I now knew was a corpse. One of the blue-uniformed police broke away to talk to him – I recognized him by his height and his black moustache. He was the officer who’d attended when the dead girl was pulled from the water.
I had to know what was happening.
Using not the stairs but jumping into the sand on the other side of the pilings, I hurried toward the water. This is a bad idea, a voice whispered in my head. But there were a few other people milling about the perimeter; with any luck, I wouldn’t stand out.
By the time I was within earshot, the two men’s voices were raised in anger.
“I won’t have you bothering my guests,” Mr. Lancet wagged his finger at the taller man. “This business has nothing to do with the Oriental.”
“A serious police investigation is not ‘bothering,’” retorted the officer. “And this is an inquiry into a homicide, not ‘business.’ The marks on the body indicate the woman was strangled, and it happened here. No one could move a body to this location out in the open, even in the middle of the night. It’s possible someone saw something – an argument, a person acting suspiciously. We need to canvass the guests at both the Manhattan Beach Hotel and the Oriental Hotel.”
“You’re talking about thousands of people,” sputtered Mr. Lancet. “Isn’t it bad enough that you haven’t moved that body off the beach yet? I’ve got heiresses coming down off the croquet field to see this!”
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