Death on West End Road

by Carrie Doyle

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Certainly, but don’t you want to record this? Or are you very skilled at shorthand?”

  Antonia pulled out her smartphone. “Yes, of course. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to.”

  Pauline shrugged. “I want to make sure you have the facts.”

  8

  At the end of the driveway, Antonia stopped abruptly as a gardener passed in front of her. A tiny, weathered old man, he nodded at her before crossing toward the large maple tree. He bent down and began weeding the pachysandra that surrounded it. Antonia watched him as he diligently worked, yanking the weeds and flicking them into his bucket. She had a superb gardener at the inn, Hector, which was fortunate as she was totally useless with plants.

  Instead of making a right toward home, Antonia made a left and slowly drove by the entire Framingham property. She wanted to absorb the neighborhood and gage the surroundings. Through the scattered bushes the house came into view as she moved along the road. On the westernmost end, as far as possible from the main house, was the guesthouse, which practically abutted the split rail fence. It was separated by only a few overgrown boxwoods, which shadowed its entrance. It was there that Scott Stewart, the tennis pro, had spent his summers. Next to it was a chain-link fence enveloped by vines; the tennis court. Antonia craned her neck to get a better look, but the foliage created an impenetrable screen.

  West End Road was not only a very narrow paved road but also a dead end. Clearly the inhabitants had gotten tired of people turning around on their lawns because there were pointy stakes thrust into the earth and rows of large white-painted rocks lining the lush grass outside their fences, making it difficult for a car to make a U-turn. The road was unique in that both sides of the street were on the waterfront (one side the Atlantic, the other side the fabled Georgica Pond). It boasted a variety of enormous houses in various architectural styles teetering on the ocean dunes, with equally impressive abodes across the street on the pond side. One house resembled a castle, another bore a resemblance to a dollhouse, several were newer imitations of the Framingham mansion, and there was one very bizarre one-story dwelling that looked not unlike a fast-food restaurant. Now that’s a teardown, Antonia thought to herself.

  This time of year the vegetation was dense and the hedges thick, which somewhat obscured Antonia’s view of many of the houses. East Hampton was a natural paradise in the summer, bursting with color, fragrant with flowers, with the ocean a lively cobalt color and the pond a deep sapphire. Everything grew with full force, from the hydrangeas to the sea grass to the ferns. Antonia thought of it as a jungle, full of lushness and sensuality, albeit a curated one. Teams of landscapers buzzed around the neighborhood, maintaining the wildlife. Lawns were mowed, hedges clipped, bushes pruned, and flowers coddled, and just when one round was finished, the gardeners came back and started all over again. The landscaping noise on weekdays was almost unbearable.

  The road narrowed and then Antonia reached a “Private: No Trespassing” sign that forced her to make a U-turn in a gravel driveway. Luckily her old Saab was compact enough not to require a three-point turn. Someone had told her that there was a public beach access at the end of the road, but the owners had put up “Private Property” signs to deter visitors, and the town had not taken them to task for it. Antonia continued back toward the inn, passing the Framingham house again and waving at the gardener before pausing at the stop sign in front of Grey Gardens.

  Antonia wondered if there was some irony in the fact that the Framingham house and Grey Gardens were so close to one another. They were both notorious in their own way. The Framinghams’ for murder and Grey Gardens for once being the decrepit residence of the impoverished Beales—Jackie Onassis’s aunt and cousin. There had been documentaries, plays, and movies made about Grey Gardens. Perhaps one day there would be one about Pauline Framingham’s home. It was ripe for a TV movie, at least. Or maybe an episode of Law and Order, if it was still on the air.

  Antonia was still processing her interview with Pauline and wanted to mull it over before she came to any conclusions. Her plan was to throw herself into dinner service and then discuss it with Joseph afterward. She was glad she had recorded it so she could play him everything in Pauline’s voice. It would be good to have an outside opinion.

  * * * * *

  Growing up, Antonia had always preferred her family’s feast on the night before Thanksgiving to the actual holiday banquet of turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. On that Wednesday night, Antonia and her parents would host her aunt and uncle for a steak dinner. It was smaller and more intimate than their Thursday affair, when extended relations, family friends, and the usual stragglers would descend for the traditional fare. But what Antonia really loved was that, in addition to steak, her mother would make double-stuffed potatoes and Antonia’s all time favorite dish: creamed corn.

  This, however, was no ordinary creamed corn. First her mother would fry bacon, then, after removing the crisp strips from the pan for Antonia to chop into bits, Mrs. Bingham would sauté chopped red onion in some of the reserved bacon fat. Then she would add the corn kernels (frozen) and sauté them in the bacon grease as well. After they were cooked through, she turned off the flame and added sour cream and the bacon bits. It was definitely not a recipe for those suffering from high cholesterol, but Antonia adored it.

  Since it was late July and there was an abundance of corn, Antonia had decided to add it to her menu that evening. Rave reviews from diners had been pouring in all night. Antonia knew that customers loved delicious comfort foods. She enjoyed reading about all of the latest food trends, like sous vide and foams and liquid nitrogen, but none of those fancier culinary tricks would ever be her forte, and the menu at the Windmill Inn reflected that. Good thing a lot of other people felt the same way and the restaurant was doing well.

  “We’ve got two more sides of that goddamned corn,” Marty snapped as he whipped the chits with the incoming orders off the board. “Soyla, you better work faster.”

  “Yes, Marty,” Soyla said complacently. Whereas Marty and Kendra were larger-than-life personalities in the kitchen, Soyla, the petite hardworking wife of Antonia’s gardener, Hector, was the quiet and unassuming worker bee. She had started with no real experience but was now running breakfast service and prepping dinner service. Currently, she was at her station, furiously shucking corn and slicing the kernels off the cobs, and she had been at it nonstop all night. They normally did prep work in advance but they’d had no idea that the corn would be so popular. Anyway, corn was best served freshly shucked.

  “Thanks, Soyla,” Antonia said.

  Friday nights were busy, and the heat was on in the kitchen. The hours had spun by for Antonia in a whirl of plating butter-and-thyme-roasted French radishes with rock shrimp tempura over beds of dressed mâche as well as cutting the fish for the ceviche. In addition, she also had to gently remind Kendra to stop Instagramming long enough to fulfill her orders.

  “Kendra, move it on the pasta,” shrieked Marty. “I’ve got two lambs dying on the pass waiting for you to be done.”

  “I’m almost finished,” she said, while snapping one more shot with her smartphone.

  “Kendra, when does this contest end?” Antonia asked gently. She wanted to give her employees wings and let them fly . . . but not if it made the customers fly away because service was so slow.

  “One more week. I promise,” Kendra said, wiping her face on a dishrag.

  Antonia could not help but note that Kendra did not look particularly healthy. Puffier than usual, she had a glossy pale sheen and was sweating from the steam coming off the burners. Her red hair was pulled back in a blue bandanna, and her doughy white features had not seen the sun this season. If Larry Lipper thought Antonia’s complexion was bad . . .

  “Okay. I hope you win. But I hope you win soon,” Antonia said.

  Glen opened the swingi
ng door to the kitchen and popped his head in. “Antonia, Genevieve is here.”

  He gave her a strange look.

  “Uh-oh, what is it?”

  “She’s doing shots at the bar . . .”

  “Is she out of control?”

  “No . . .” he answered without conviction.

  Despite being only two years younger than Antonia, Genevieve behaved as if she were a teenager. If there was a female equivalent of the Peter Pan syndrome, Genevieve suffered from it. After a few peripatetic years where she jumped back and forth between Northern and Southern California—attempting to be an actress, then a vintner, but ultimately working as a caterer and following any guy that caught her fancy—she was now a manager at one of the local Ralph Lauren stores (there were, rather impressively, four in town) and was quite successful at her job. That didn’t change the fact that she was, at times, immature and infantile and could still be found engaging in the same activities as people twenty years her junior. Examples included: attending Justin Bieber concerts, putting toilet paper around neighbors’ bushes at Halloween, and prank calling “enemies” from burner phones. She had terrible taste in men—not only attracting losers and cheaters—but was completely oblivious to any warning signs and resolutely refused guidance. If she found a man handsome, it wouldn’t make a difference if he was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, his hands were in cuffs, and two federal agents held him by the arms; she would go for it. But she was fun and loyal as heck and those were only two of the many good reasons why she and Antonia were best friends.

  As soon as the orders died down, Antonia took off her apron and made her way through the restaurant to find Genevieve. It was not hard, as her voice preceded her.

  “Come on! You can do better than that!” Genevieve coaxed loudly. “Woo! Woo! Woo!”

  Antonia found her at the bar with two older men in suits, one with short dark hair and the other with a mop of steel wool–colored hair and the type of wire-rimmed glasses that had been popular in the seventies. Genevieve—her long, lanky figure clad in a floor-length floral spaghetti strap dress with tasseled leather earrings dangling from her lobes—towered over the two men. She was egging them on to drink some sort of flaming red liquid shot, and they were up to the challenge. Fortunately, rather than offend or disrupt the remaining clients, this seemed to have energized them. The remaining diners were clapping along, and the other guests at the bar were smiling with encouragement.

  “Antonia!” Genevieve boomed with excitement as soon as she saw her friend.

  “Hey, Genevieve, what’s going on?”

  “This is Heinrich and Chang.”

  “Ching,” asserted the dark-haired man.

  “Ching! Right. And we are celebrating!”

  The two men downed their shots to the applause of the room. They were both perspiring as if they had been running and their eyes were slightly bleary and bloodshot.

  “What are you celebrating?” Antonia asked. “And how long have you been celebrating for?”

  “We are celebrating our new friendship,” Genevieve said loudly before leaning in and whispering to her friend, “They just spent forty thousand dollars in the store. I earned the fattest commission of my life. Apparently they live in Singapore, they’re here for some business associate’s daughter’s wedding or something random and they wanted to buy souvenirs for their family! Can you even?”

  “That’s great,” Antonia said.

  She didn’t want to quash her friend’s ebullient mood, but Antonia wasn’t sure she was excited to have such a festive atmosphere in her restaurant. It irritated her a bit. Or was she overthinking it? Was it a good thing that people came to her bar to ‘party’?

  “Turns out they’re staying here this weekend! I insisted we have the best champagne and drinks so they can drop some more coin in your inn as well. I have them ordering only the most expensive stuff. But don’t worry, I’m dumping whatever I can when they’re not looking. Then they’re only too happy to buy me more!”

  Immediately Antonia felt bad. No matter how scattered and lacking in common sense Genevieve could be, at her core she had Antonia’s best interests in mind and, in her own clumsy and often inappropriate style, she always meant well. Antonia should have known by now not to doubt her.

  “Thanks, Genevieve.”

  “You betcha,” she said, crinkling up her nose. Unlike Antonia’s pale complexion, Genevieve’s naturally olive skin was bronzed and tanned. She was a stunning woman with beautiful big green eyes and a tawny, even complexion. Her features were a little asymmetrical, but in Antonia’s mind, these quirks only enhanced her beauty. Genevieve had never failed to attract male attention, but it was always the quality of her admirers that was the issue.

  “Listen, when you’re not busy—and when you’re totally sober—I want to ask you about something,” Antonia told her.

  “Uh-oh, am I in trouble?”

  “No, I need some information on everything you know about East Hampton in the summer of 1990. I know you were here then.”

  “Nineteen-ninety?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I mean, I was here, but I was pre-pubescent. Although I might have had breasts, I did develop early . . . unfortunately, I also stopped developing early . . . why do you want to know about that?”

  Before Antonia could answer, Genevieve’s drinking buddies coaxed her away and she did another shot with them, to the backdrop of the chanting crowd. Antonia motioned to the bartender to keep an eye on the drunken triumvirate. The German downed a shot and swaggered over to Antonia.

  “You are a beautiful woman,” he said, his breath fragrant with alcohol.

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean it. A beautiful woman.”

  “That’s very nice of you.”

  “Genevieve says you are single. I am also single.”

  “Yes, I’m single.”

  Heinrich swayed slightly, woozy from alcohol, but kept his eyes locked on Antonia. “A beautiful woman like you shouldn’t be single. Come, have a drink with me. Let’s go sit over there, away from the noise.”

  “I’m flattered, but I need to return to the kitchen. Time to wind down dinner service.”

  He sighed deeply. “I see. Genevieve said you were single, but it appears you have your heart set on another man.”

  Antonia didn’t want to protest, it wasn’t worth it. “You’re right. I’m in love with someone. But thanks for the offer of the drink. I’ll head back into the kitchen now.”

  Heinrich gave her a nod. “I hope this man is worth it. Genevieve speaks very highly of you.”

  “Yes I do,” said Genevieve, swooping in on the tail end of the conversation just as Heinrich walked away. “What was that all about?”

  “He was hitting on me.”

  “As well he should! You need to get out there, Antonia.”

  “I need to get back to work. I have to meet Joseph in the library at eleven.”

  “But wait, what were you saying before?” asked Genevieve, returning her attention to Antonia. “What happened in 1990?”

  Antonia sighed. “It’s a long story, but Pauline Framingham asked me to look into her friend Susie’s murder.”

  “SHUT UP!”

  “It’s true.”

  “That is so awesome, another murder!”

  “Um, awesome and tragic?”

  “Yeah, totally. I didn’t mean to be callous. I just meant that you are so good at solving crimes, Miss Marple. Okay, yes we have to brainstorm and I will try and remember everything. Of course that was a major event that summer. I probably wrote about it in my diary, which I still have . . . Hello Kitty, so cute . . .”

  “Okay, well, see what you come up with.”

  “For sure!”

  Antonia started to walk away when Genevieve laid a hand on her arm, stopping her.

&n
bsp; “And of course you need to talk to my sister.”

  “Victoria? Why?”

  “Because her best friend Holly was dating Pauline’s brother at the time.”

  “Really? She was friends with Holly Wender?”

  “Yeah. Small world.”

  “It is indeed,” mused Antonia. “Okay, I’ll call Victoria.”

  “Or come by. She’s staying with me for the week.”

  As she left the room Heinrich blew her a kiss. Antonia was tickled. It was nice to have a man tell you that you were beautiful. No matter how intoxicated he was. But her mind immediately jumped to Nick Darrow. If only he knew how much she thought about him. If only he were available.

  9

  That Antonia was meeting Joseph in the library of the inn to listen to Pauline’s recording recounting Susie’s murder was a little ironic since that’s where she had met with Pauline just the day before; hearing Pauline’s voice come through the phone was déjà vu. But Antonia always preferred to sit in the library after dinner. Most of the hotel guests who were returning home from their dinners or events flocked to the parlor, where they could still order drinks and snacks until midnight. The library afforded some privacy.

  Because the Windmill Inn was open year-round, it was crucial that the décor be appropriate for all seasons. It meant that Antonia had to establish a delicate balance between cozy and charming, more fitting for fall and winter, and bright and airy, for spring and summer. She found that switching out the throw pillows from darker hues to brighter colors in the warmer season added an incredible amount of light. The heavy curtains were removed from the windows of the downstairs public rooms, leaving just the bamboo matchstick shades, and in some places thin white curtains were added as the only protection from the sunlight that flowed into the inn. Antonia also pulled up many of the area carpets and left the polished floors bare for the summer. Streamlining the décor made all the difference.