by Kris Calvert
“I’m sorry my brother couldn’t be here, but I think we’re clear on everything.”
I could hear Lena speaking from the library as I hustled back to the room.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I repeated, rushing in. “I got tied up getting some things squared away.”
The three people I assumed were from the funeral home sat stoned face across from me, not saying a word. “What did I miss?”
They looked to each other and then back to Lena.
“It’s okay, I’ll fill him in,” Lena said, tossing the Kleenex in her hand into the trash.
I let my exasperation show with a heavy sigh, standing to meet them. “Please excuse me, I really did try to make the appointment on time.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” one of them said, offering his hand. His partner followed suit.
“I am as well, Mr. Holloway.”
“Thank you,” I said, shaking each of their hands and looking to the third man.
“I’m doing the flowers, sir—the house, chapel, gravesite and casket.”
I nodded, “Thank you. Thank you all. I’m sure whatever you’ve decided will be wonderful. My dad would’ve appreciated all the care you’re taking to make this…dignified.”
They nodded in unison, but no one said anything. I thought of how awkward it was, but then realized they planned funerals every day. I was the amateur.
“Let me show you out.” Lena gestured to the front of the house and began to walk away.
“I’ll do it,” I piped up. “It’s the least I can do now that I’ve missed the meeting. Gentlemen, after you.”
I gave Lena a tepid smile. I knew she was upset with me, but sometimes things can’t be avoided—like your ex-girlfriend stripping naked and giving you an impromptu lap dance.
We walked from the library down the hall, turning into the open space that was the grand entrance—it had been completely cleaned. With the splatters and giant pools of blood in various stages of coagulation gone, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was at least one thing off the list.
“We’ll be seeing you soon, and thank you again for coming out to the house. I know we weren’t up for traveling outside of Winter Haven today.”
Three more handshakes and they were gone.
Turning I shouted, “Lena? Lena?”
She rushed into the main hall, tears streaming down her face. “What Win? For God’s sake what?”
I pulled her tightly into my embrace. “I’m sorry I missed it. I thought we were meeting them at two.”
Her reply was muffled in my chest. “They came early. I tried to call your cell phone, but I guess you don’t have it on you.”
She was right, I’d not had my phone with me all day. “What do I need to know and what do I need to do? By the way, the stairs are all cleaned up.”
Lena gasped, pulling away. “Oh, thank God.”
I gave the top of her blonde head a kiss. “See, it’s gonna get better.”
“Maybe not,” she said, taking me by the hand and leading me back to the library.
“What is it?”
“Just come sit with me for a minute. There’s some stuff we need to talk about.”
I followed her into stately room and sat in my favorite leather chair. The official man of the house chair, it was close to fifty years old and worn in all the right places. I remembered Cee Cee always sitting in it by the fire during the holidays. “What is it?”
Lena looked away as if she had something tragic to tell me.
“C’mon Lena. Spit it out. You’re scaring me. Granted, at this stage of the game that’s pretty easy to do, but still.”
“I set up all the flowers for Daddy. I chose yellow roses.”
I paused a moment and took a breath. “Like Mom.”
“I didn’t remember that, but the florist did. I thought it was appropriate and I thought you might like it too.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t remember Momma’s funeral.”
“You were traumatized and only four, Lena.”
Tears began to well in her eyes and she looked to me. “I remember little things, like Mom’s hands. You know? That’s weird, right?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“I feel like she had a scar on her knuckle or something. I don’t know.”
I smiled at my sister. “She did have a scar. She cut the top of her hand open with a spade in the garden. Had to get stiches. I remember that.”
“Really?”
“Uh huh.”
“Tell me something else about her, Win. Tell me something good. You know, you always had Dad. If you wanted boy time you could have it—with Dad or with Cee Cee. But Grandma and Momma weren’t around. I didn’t have that luxury. I didn’t have anybody.”
“You had nannies,” I offered as if they were an adequate substitute. I knew it wasn’t true.
“So did you. You know it’s not the same.”
I didn’t say anything, but brought my fingers to my lips in thoughtful contemplation. There weren’t many memories of my mother that didn’t revolve around her death. Still, I searched the deep recesses of my childhood.
“There was this one time we were playing in the side yard—away from the distillery houses and offices. I wanted to have a picnic, so Vernon turned over the kitchen to us. Mom sat me on the big butcher block and gave me a butter knife. I made us all peanut butter sandwiches and she put the jelly on them in a smiley face. We made lemonade and I packed it all into my red Radio Flyer wagon. I pulled it out to one of the trees and set up a blanket for our lunch. You’d eaten a couple squares of sandwich that Mom had cut up for you in the kitchen and were already asleep.”
“So you’re saying there was a time when I wasn’t the life of the party?” Lena asked.
“Yes,” I replied with a wink. “We laid under that tree and ate our sandwiches, drank lemonade and stared into the blue sky. She would point out what she thought the clouds were and I believed she had some sort of magical power to make them look like anything she wanted.”
In my mind I’d transported back to that day as I sat in the library and thought of my beautiful mother.
“Did you see anything in the clouds?” Lena asked.
“I remember one thing,” I said looking back to my sister. “Mom wore a long necklace all the time. There’s not a memory I have of her without it.”
“A necklace? What kind of necklace?”
“It was gold and on a long chain,” I said running my hand from my collarbone down my chest. “I remember seeing the clouds and saying, Momma that looks like your necklace.”
“What was it?’
I looked back to my sister. “It was a key. Knowledge is the key to life, but only faith unlocks the door.”
Lena shook her head. “I have all of her jewelry. At least I think I do. Wait. What did you say?”
I stood and began to pace, suddenly inspired by my memory. “It wasn’t an ordinary looking key either,” I whispered. “Knowledge is the key to life, but only faith unlocks the door.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Mom said it to me.”
“What did it look like exactly?” Lena asked.
“I dunno,” I said, trying my best to think of it. “It was like a weird shape at the top or something. Do you have anything like that in the jewelry Dad gave you of hers?”
Lena shook her head no. “And believe me. I’ve been through all of it a million times. I used to sleep in her pearls when I was a teenager and wanted to talk to her. I thought that somehow wearing her stuff connected me to her. It’s silly, I know.”
I held my sister tight. “Not at all. We gotta hold onto what we can, right?”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“And that includes each other.”
“Knowing is the key to life, but only faith unlocks the door. Win?”
“Yes?”
“You’re giving Dad’s eulogy tomorrow.”
“I’m what?” I stopp
ed cold. “You want me to…”
“Who else would do it?”
“I don’t know. What about Magnus?”
“You need to give the eulogy, Win. You’re the heir apparent to the Winterbourne throne.”
“Ha. Throne. More like Game of Thrones.”
“C’mon, Win,” she moaned. “If you won’t do this for Dad, then do it for me.”
12
GINNY
Staring out the window of my guest room, I waited for a messenger to pick up the evidence bag from Lena’s room and checked my email.
When the black sedan came roaring up the long lane that led to the house, I hurried outside to meet it. The evidence was tucked away in an empty shopping bag I found in the closet of the guest room and then again in my own messenger bag. I prayed no one would stop me as I rushed through the front door.
Knotts popped his chin to say hello. “Agent Grace.”
Handing the bag off to him, I looked around the front porch to ensure we were alone. “I want a full toxicology report and check it for prints.”
“You got it.”
“How are the background checks coming along?”
“Good. I’ll have something to you a little later today.”
“Any luck tailing?” I asked, bringing my voice down.
Knotts nodded. “Should have a surveillance report by oh-eight-hundred tomorrow. I’ll make sure you get it everything you need.”
I stared at him. In the beginning, he’d impressed me as a hard ass with zero intention of working alongside a skirt from New York. But he knew I took him seriously. It was nice knowing he felt the same way. The fact he knew of my father also made him special in my eyes. I wanted to get to know Agent Knotts. I wanted to pick his brain. “Thank you.”
Knotts turned to leave and something crossed my mind. “Agent Knotts?”
“Yes,” he said turning to face me, shielding his eyes in the afternoon sun.
“You seem to know these parts pretty well. You wouldn’t happen to be from around here, would you?”
Knotts pursed his lips. “What would give you that idea?”
I shrugged. “Just a hunch.”
“I grew up just a few miles down the road,” he said thumbing over his shoulder.
I nodded. “Good to know. Local insight can sometimes be more revealing than hard evidence.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget Agent Grace, gossip isn’t admissible in a court of law.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I watched the black sedan drive up the lane to the main road and opened one side of the heavy, gilded front door. Shutting it behind me, I turned and jumped out of my skin. Magnus Page had appeared out of thin air.
“Mr. Page,” I gasped, laying my open hand on my heaving chest. “You startled me.”
“My apologies, Miss Grace.”
I couldn’t help but glance behind and to either side of him. He honestly seemed to come out of nowhere.
“Ginny,” I corrected. “Seriously, where did you come from?”
“I assure you I have no tricks up my sleeve, Miss Grace.”
“Ginny.”
He smiled at me, finally succumbing to my wishes. “Ginny, then.”
Magnus Page was a fit man of sixty-four. He was tall, handsome, had a beautiful smile and was what my grandmother would call debonair. He possessed the polished kind of chivalry most women would never have the pleasure of experiencing. I knew at once he’d been a player in his day. The idea that he now wanted to play with a woman who was thirty years his junior was a little unsettling, but perhaps that was Magnus’ MO—young babes. Then I realized, gentlemen like Magnus Page were always in their day.
“Did you receive my message?” I moved away from Magnus to escape the slightly uncomfortable nearness of his overwhelming presence.
“Yes,” he replied, hanging onto the word with a long drawl. “When would you like to get together?”
I cocked my head and smiled in near desperation. He was, in fact, the 911 caller. It was unprecedented he’d not given a statement. “How about right now?”
Glancing at his watch he looked back to me. “I have a moment to spare. Shall we?” He walked past me pausing only to extend his arm.
“Is the library okay?” I asked, leading the way.
“Of course.”
I took a seat on the first couch and watched Magnus shut the double doors behind us as I settled in.
“May I get you some sweet tea? Water?” he asked dragging out each word with polite repartee.
“Actually,” I said, feeling the dryness of my throat. “sweet tea would be wonderful. I don’t get much of that in New York City.”
Magnus picked up the house phone and punched a couple of numbers. “Vernon, would you mind terribly to bring a tray of sweet tea to the library. Miss Grace is taking my statement for the FBI and she’s feeling parched.”
Suddenly I felt like a spoiled child. I would’ve been fine with a bottle of water from the bar.
“Thank you, Vernon.”
Magnus turned on his heel and made his way back to me on the legs of what seemed like a young man.
“Now,” he said, staring at me with his steely grey eyes. “Where shall we begin?”
I pulled the notepad from my satchel and began the frantic search for a pen in the bottom of the bag. “I’ve got Lena’s statement already. I just need…” I paused, giving my full attention to my hand swimming in the endless sea of junk.
Magnus stood as soon as he sat. Now at my feet, I watched him slide a weighty gold pen from his jacket pocket and hold it in front of me. “Allow me.”
“Oh,” I replied, dropping my bag and taking the pen from his hand. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
He took his place across from me again in the large room, and I gazed around it in awe. I’d not been in the library in the daytime. Whatever my notion of its grandeur was in the dark, I needed to multiply it by ten in the light. Books filled the two story room from top to bottom and the sliding ladders on either side of the room offered ready access to the entire collection. It matched the rest of the house in its old world feel.
“It’s really quite something, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry?” I asked, bringing my attention back to him.
“Come in.” Magnus said after a light tap came at the door. “Thank you Vernon.”
On the silver tray now sitting beautifully on the stuffed ottoman that separated us was a crystal pitcher of sweet iced tea with fresh lemon, mint and two glasses filled with ice.
“This looks heavenly,” I said, finding my way back to my Kentucky roots and therefore what was left of my southern accent.
Vernon nodded. “May I get you anything else?”
I shook my head as Magnus poured me a glass of tea and handed it to me. “Lemon?” he asked. “Mint?”
I took the first sip. “No thank you. This is lovely.”
“As I was saying, Winter Haven is really quite something.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
He sat, adjusting his suit coat around his frame and crossed his legs, then his arms. He said nothing—only stared—keeping a pleasant smile on his face. Cool as a cucumber, I wondered two things: how much litigation he’d done as an attorney over the years and if he’d been interviewed by my father. There was no record of it in the file, but there was virtually nothing in the file.
“Can you take me through the events of May seventeenth, Mr. Page?”
“Please, call me Magnus.”
I nodded.
“Where would you like for me to begin?”
“You made the 911 call, did you not?”
“I did.”
“Where were you just prior to making the call?
“I’d been in the office on the back of the property doing some late night work,” he said, placing his arm across the back of the couch and settling his body into the leather. “It’s not uncommon for me to work late. I’m a bit of a night owl.”
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I wrote down the details on my legal pad, looking back to him. “I guess so if you’re working at one and two in the morning. Were you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Is there video surveillance on the property?” I knew the answer to my own question and by the look on his face I suspected he knew I did as well.
“You can look back at the tapes. I’m sure you’ll find me coming in and out of the office building.”
“Great. I’ll pull those.”
He stared, offering no further explanation.
“What time did you leave the office? I’ll check the time stamp on the video of course, but for reference.”
“Between one and one-thirty. I was a bit weary and didn’t take the time to check my watch.”
I wrinkled my nose, looking to the notes in my lap. “And how did you know Robert was dead?”
“Lena screamed out.”
“And you heard her from the office building?”
“Of course not,” he said with a polite sneer. “Around one-thirty or thereabouts, I took my golf cart from the office up to the house. I’d left something behind and wanted to take it with me.”
“May I ask what?”
“My umbrella,” he said, shifting his weight on the couch. “I’d left it in the library. A storm was about to kick up and I knew I’d never see it again if I left it in here. Things have a way of being put away at Winter Haven. I’ve always thought of it as a bit of a black hole,” he said with a snicker.
“What do you mean?” I asked, not looking up from my notes.
“I always teased Robert that someday we were all going to fall victim to the vortex inside this house that seems to take items.”
I narrowed my gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m not following.”
“You know how you lose one sock in each laundry load and it’s a mystery as to where it goes?”
I nodded thinking Magnus Page didn’t look like the kind of man who knew his way around a washer or a dryer.
