by Abigail Keam
Giles nodded and went to fetch Mr. Neff, who was cooling his heels in the foyer.
“Now, Josiah, you do all the talking,” coaxed Lady Elsmere.
“Yes, please,” echoed Mrs. Bradley. “I don’t know what to ask.”
Our heads swiveled toward the massive walnut door as it opened. Giles and a squat balding man, with what little hair he had left pulled back into a ponytail, strode into the room. I am also very sorry to inform you that he was wearing a white t-shirt under a pale green suit coat and expensive slip-on shoes with no socks. Apparently he had never gotten over Miami Vice. And to make matters worse, a gold chain hung from his neck.
“Oh,” squeaked Mrs. Bradley in obvious disappointment. I had to agree that Mr. Neff didn’t look much like a detective. Where was the trench coat?
Mr. Neff, not noticing our dismay at his appearance, quipped, “You can tell my sidekick here that he can leave now. I’m not going to steal the family silver, at least not with you dames in the room anyway.”
“Dames?” I repeated. That slang sent a shiver up my spine. I knew of another man from my past that had used ’40s slang and might be indirectly responsible for my fall . . . and another man’s murder. You remember Larry Bingham.
“You may go now, Giles,” said Lady Elsmere.
“Yeah, thanks for the jollies, Jeeves, Giles, James, whatever your name is,” sneered Neff as he unwrapped a piece of chewing gum. After sticking gum between his wide puffy lips, he chewed as a cow chewing her cud while observing us. “Which one of you broads thinks she’s being knocked off soon?”
“Mr. Neff, are you late for a belated Halloween party?” asked Lady Elsmere, gazing at him above her Versace glasses.
“Why would you ask that?”
“I should have thought it was rather obvious,” stated Lady Elsmere, her expression hardening.
“She wants to know what in the hell . . . I mean, Lady Elsmere would like to ascertain if this is your regular mode of dress?” I asked, cutting in.
Neff gave a wide grin. “So you’re the one I really talk to,” he spouted, grinning at me. “Is there something wrong with my attire?” Neff held open his jacket and pranced around in a circle like a runway model.
“It’s just that your outfit went out in the late ’80s. How do you blend in when you are shadowing someone? Don’t you stick out?”
“Ladies, this is my going-to-meetin’-clients outfit. I have reconnaissance attire. You don’t need to worry about my professionalism. I’ll get the job done.” He pulled a chair over and sat down in front of us. “Gee, my feelings are hurt.” He tugged at the t-shirt.
“And what’s with the name?”
“What do you mean, Josiah?” asked Lady Elsmere, hostilely eying the scratch on the floor made by the dragged chair.
“Josiah? Is that your name, Toots? Josiah. Isn’t that a boy’s name?” he mocked. “Yeah, a king’s name, isn’t it? You think you’re royalty or somethin’?”
“At least I’m not named after a movie character,” I countered.
Neff clapped his hands in appreciation and gave a short whistle. “Someone knows her classic mystery novels.” He winked at me.
“Her movies,” quipped Lady Elsmere, under her breath.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Please continue,” replied Lady Elsmere watching Josiah and Mr. Neff go after each other like two pigs fighting under a blanket.
“Walter Neff is the name of the murderous insurance man in the novel Double Indemnity by James M. Cain,” I explained. “It was made into a movie with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in 1944, and is still considered today an almost perfect movie. It is numbered by the American Film Institute twenty-ninth out of the one hundred greatest films ever made.”
“How extraordinary!” exclaimed Lady Elsmere. “As if anyone would know that besides you, Josiah.”
Neff gave a little shrug, smiling. “What can I say? Me mum loved mystery stories. She named me after one of her favorite characters. And you must read too many mysteries,” he said to me.
Re-directing his attention, Neff looked directly at Ethel. “You must be the little lady who thinks someone is trying to off her.”
Ethel nodded her blue-gray head, as she was too bewildered to speak.
“Let’s get down to business. I told you my rates over the phone. If you give me your address, I shall start looking things over and report back in several days.”
“We will only keep you on retainer for two days, Mr. Neff. That should be enough time to discover some information that would be useful,” I interrupted.
Neff cracked his gum. “Is it? Well, I won’t fight with the boss, which is obviously you,” stated Neff. “I should have something for you in two days.”
Lady Elsmere stood up. “Then you two can finish up the details. Ethel and I are not needed here.”
Ethel echoed Lady Elsmere’s cue. “No, not needed.”
“I really should interview you, Ethel Bradley,” suggested Neff. He grinned at her while smacking his gum.
“I’ve told Josiah everything.”
Neff made a short rude sound with his mouth. “Okay, if that’s the way you want to play this.”
Lady Elsmere strode out of the room with Ethel trotting closely behind her.
I thought he needed to interview Ethel too, but apparently Lady Elsmere had had enough of him. Sometimes she was like that with people . . . just cut them off. I made a suggestion. “Why don’t you drop by this afternoon about tea time. I’ll have her ready to talk to you then. She’s a little nervous now. If you have a contract, please leave it on table.”
“What was her name again?”
“Mrs. Bradley. Probably still is. You wanted to interview her, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did, but I’m sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.” Neff leered at me.
Without thinking, I replied, “There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff.”
“How fast was I going, Officer?”
“I’d say around ninety.”
“Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket?”
“Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.”
“Suppose it doesn’t take?”
“Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.”
“Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.”
“Suppose you try putting it on your client’s shoulder.”
“That tears it.”
I put my fingers to my lips. “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe we just did that.”
Neff pushed his chair closer. “Yeah, I thought only nerds like me memorized dialogue from Double Indemnity, not beautiful dames like yourself. Must be awful lonely at nights, huh?” He leaned towards me and gave me the once-over. “Just think how good we’d be at other things.”
My skin crawled. “Tea is served at four-thirty. I’ll make sure that Mrs. Bradley has her wits about her and has written down the important facts.”
“You gonna be here, Toots?”
“No, Mr. Neff. I have my own mystery movie to star in.”
“Too bad. We could have made beautiful music together.”
“I assure you that is just in your imagination.”
“And, oh, what an imagination I have!” He gave me the once-over again. “I like women with a little meat on them.”
“Mr. Neff, go to the door. Put your hand on the knob. Turn it to the left. Now please walk – not slither – out the door.”
“See you around, Toots,” said Mr. Neff as he moved into the hallway. He turned to say something else.
I slammed the door in his face.
5
“I’m not going to increase your dosage or switch medications.”
“Then you don’t believe me.”
“It’s not a matter of believing you, Mrs. Reynolds. It’s just that I can’t find anything wrong with you. I think you are experiencing what is called phantom pain. There is no physical
reason that I can find for increasing your dosage.”
“If I were a man, you’d increase it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I’m in pain. Now what are you going to do?”
“I am suggesting that you learn to live with it.”
“Why don’t I crack your leg with my cane and you learn to live with the pain?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, I’m begging you.”
“I suggest that you try alternative methods like meditation, acupuncture or hypnosis.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Don’t you understand that you are a borderline addict? If I increase your medication or switch to hardcore narcotics, then three months from now, I’ll be sending you to Betty Ford, plus I’ll lose my license.”
“Other states have more humane attitudes towards those in pain.”
“Other states don’t have the drug problem we have. Other states actually pay their own way. They’re not an entitlement state like we have become. We get more funding from the federal government than we send to Washington, which is why I will never understand the reason this state always votes red in national elections. But a lot of the need for this entitlement money is due to drug abuse, not because people can’t find jobs.”
“So now I am a drag on society.”
“You’re becoming a drag with me. You’re not going to get a different prescription. That’s final!” said the doctor on his way out the door.
That went well.
6
I was changing my bed sheets when Baby decided to help me . . . again. His idea of help was chasing his tail, getting between the bed and me, and trying to eat a pillowcase.
“That’s it. Out you go,” I declared. I had only so much energy to do housework and Baby wasted a lot of it . . . being Baby. I was trying to open the patio door and pull Baby outside by his collar at the same time. Big mistake.
The result was that the door cracked open enough to let “Baby’s” kittens rush in with their mother following behind them. She immediately jumped in my Hans Wegner Papa Bear chair for a nap.
Once they could fend for themselves I had had the kittens neutered and placed in the barn. The problem was they never stayed there.
Of course Baby was delighted that his comrades in mischief had breached the Butterfly. Barking loudly, he played with the kittens, which included chasing them up my leg and onto my head.
“Damn it,” I cursed, trying to disengage a kitten’s entrenched claws from my hair.
“Uhmmm,” said Eunice, looking amused in the doorway.
“Can you get this cat off my head? His claws are digging into my scalp!” I cried out in frustration.
Eunice threw the cat on the floor and then turned her attention to Baby. “Baby, be quiet!”
The mastiff immediately quit howling and sat on the floor looking up inquisitively at Eunice.
“Why does that dog obey everyone but me?” I questioned while straightening my hair in the dresser mirror.
“It’s a phase. He’s a teenager. No teenage boy listens to his mother,” responded Eunice, glancing about at the mayhem the cats were creating by knocking items off nightstands and darting in and out from beneath the bed. She handed me a card.
“What’s this?”
“A Sir Anthony is here to see you.”
“Without an appointment? How dare he,” I cracked.
“Be careful with this one. I don’t think he’ll understand your sense of humor.”
“What does he want?”
“Didn’t say. Just wants to see you.” Eunice glanced at her hair in the mirror also. “You know, he seems awfully familiar. I wonder if he came to my hotel in Bermuda.”
“Ask him.”
“I can hardly do that, Josiah. There are some things that you just don’t ask.”
I shrugged. “Do I look okay enough to see one of England’s noble gentry?”
“No, but you’ll have to do. Now get out there and see what he wants.”
Putting put on some lipstick, I gave myself one last look in the mirror before going into the great room. There I found Sir Anthony studying my art collection. He turned at my approach. I took stock of him.
Sir Anthony was of the typical aristocratic Norman-Saxon appearance – broad forehead, Roman nose, tall, high color, blue eyes, slightly balding. One could see Viking and Germanic blood co-mingling with de sang Celtic pulsating through his slim frame. Of course, the haughtiness he exuded had been drilled into English schoolboys ever since Admiral Lord Nelson triumphed over the French and Spanish navies at the Battle of Trafalgar. To these chaps – God is an Englishman.
“Hello,” I said pleasantly. “I’m Josiah Reynolds.” I held out my hand.
Sir Anthony took it and kissed the air above my Clorox-scented hand. “I am Sir Anthony Preston Gladwyne, Lady Elsmere’s nephew.”
“Yes, I know. Would you like to sit down, Sir Anthony?”
“Thank you very much.”
“Would you like tea or perhaps coffee?”
“No thank you. I know it’s close to teatime, but I find that a really well brewed tea can be found only in Great Britain, although I tip my hat to you Yanks for your coffee. I’ll have my man make me some tea when I get back to the cottage.”
So Lady Elsmere’s huge antebellum mansion was a “cottage.”
I turned to Eunice, who was listening in the doorway. “We don’t need anything. Thank you.”
Eunice gave Sir Anthony a stony eye before leaving the room.
“I take it this is not a social visit.”
“No shilly-shally here, eh?”
“We Americans like plain talk. What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to discuss a matter of delicacy about which you can be immensely helpful.”
“Okay. Spill.”
“Pardon?”
“Let’s have it.”
“Oh, yes. Straight to the point, eh?”
I sat in my chair taking Sir Anthony in. His shirt cuffs looked a little frayed.
“When I came to visit my great-aunt, I was horrified at the condition in which she lived.”
“I don’t understand what you mean?”
“The house was a mess and totally disorganized. My man, Giles, has tried his best to get the house in some sort of order, but has had his hands tied by this chap Charles and his family – the DuPuys.
“Since I am a family member, it is my duty to make sure that Lord Elsmere’s widow be cared for in the matter fitting her station.”
“Sir Anthony,” I said butting in. “I know that employees in America are not as deferential as in England and things move a little slower here, but I can assure you that Lady Elsmere’s household runs at peak efficiency and her Ladyship is under the best of care.”
“I beg to differ. Since Charles has moved into the main house and taken management of the farm, the house has become a disgrace. The food was inedible when I came. I had to hire new cooks. Expensive wine has disappeared from the wine cellar as well as personal items such as my pocket watch, which had been in my family since the eighteenth century. Even her Ladyship’s unmentionables were not washed and mended one week. She had to do without. It’s disgraceful. ”
The thought of June going without bloomers made me smile.
“This is no laughing matter.”
“I can see that. There may be a period of adjustment if Charles has to devote all his time to the farm now, but things at the house will even out. Charles will make sure of it.”
“I’m afraid that I can’t take your word for it. Something must be done.”
Here was the crux of the conversation. I already knew what he was going to suggest before he spewed it out into the room.
“I am of the opinion that this DuPuy family is taking advantage of my good aunt and something should be done.”
“Like what?”
“I think they should be removed from positions of authority as they are n
ot competent.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know that you are very close to this family and were instrumental in having Lady Elsmere declare Charles her immediate heir.”
“The DuPuy family is aristocracy around here. They worked for Henry Clay’s family and helped build this community, even in the dark years.”
“They are descendants of slaves and have no relationship to my aunt other than being servants.”
Pursing my lips, I asked evenly, “Why tell me?”
“Because changes have to be made and they should be discreet and cautionary.”
“In other words – you’re telling me to butt out.”
Sir Anthony’s face took on a flinty quality. “This is a private family matter. Outside interference will be resisted.”
I stood up. “Thank you, Sir Anthony. I understand precisely where you’re coming from.”
He stood also. “I trust that we have an understanding as we both have Lady Elsmere’s best interests at heart.”
“I have Lady Elsmere’s best interests at heart.”
“Good. Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. It’s really for the greater good.”
“May I see you out?”
Taking the hint, Sir Anthony held up his hand. “Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I can see that I disrupted cleaning day.”
I returned a weak smile. I think he had just taken a stab at me.
It was at this time that Eunice let Baby out of the bedroom. He padded happily into the great room to see who was visiting. In his mouth, he held one of the kittens.
Sir Anthony’s blue eyes widened. “Good lord. What is that mastiff going to do with that feline?”
“Eat it. It’s dinner.”
Eunice held the front door open as Sir Anthony gave one last ghastly look at Baby before hurrying out.
Disappointed that he couldn’t show off his trophy, Baby spat out the cat and began giving her a bath with his huge tongue. Purring, the cat settled under Baby’s expert nurturing.
Laughing, I patted Baby on his massive head.
“Can you believe that man’s gall?” blurted Eunice.
