The Body in the Gazebo (23 page)

With only her handbag, she was out of the terminal quickly and grabbed a cab. Despite her errand, her spirits lifted as soon as she saw the familiar skyline. She was home.

It was odd to drive past her family’s apartment ten blocks north of her destination. Her parents were in Spain, a rare vacation that presaged more, longer ones. For some time now, her father had been urging the congregation to form a search committee and engage an interim. “I may have to actually quit in order to make them realize I can’t keep being their minister forever.” Jane Sibley, a real estate lawyer, had gone part-time some years ago. She was urging her husband to retire, as were his daughters. Faith was happy they were away. The last time she’d seen them her mother looked wonderful, as always, but her father looked extremely tired. He’d never bounced back after a serious heart attack several years ago. While she understood how hard it would be for the church to let go of their longtime leader, she was entertaining thoughts of standing outside a Sunday service leafleting the congregation with a letter begging them to let him leave.

She’d called Hope when the plane had landed and they were meeting at the Viand coffee shop on Madison, not far from the Winthrops’ town house. Faith was in need of an egg cream, that quintessential New York delicacy consisting of U-Bet (and only this brand will do) chocolate syrup, very cold milk, and very fizzy seltzer. No eggs involved. It went very well with Viand’s pastrami sandwich—not to be compared with Katz’s, but that was too far downtown.

As soon as she was finished with Mrs. Winthrop, and perhaps Miss W. would also be there, Faith was to call Hope. She put her number on the screen and activated her iPhone’s GPS tracker, InstaMapper, which Hope had insisted she install and was now insisting she use. It would allow the mistress of time management to schedule her arrival at the coffee shop to coincide with her sister’s arrival there, thus not wasting a minute of Hope’s billable hours.

Faith had called the Winthrop house from Ursula’s on Wednesday and left word on an answering machine that Mrs. Rowe was not able to come herself, but someone else representing her would arrive on Friday morning and to please call back if it was not convenient. There had been no call.

Faith paid the cabdriver and approached the house with some trepidation. Compared to the others on the block, the place looked shabby. The evergreens in the large urns on either side of the front door were dry and most of the needles brown. The brass knocker and door handle needed polishing. The door itself could use a fresh coat of paint.

Noting that she seemed to be arriving unannounced often lately, Faith pushed the bell. She hadn’t given her name when she’d called; she wasn’t sure why, but the whole enterprise seemed to call for anonymity—and even stealth.

She could hear a chime sound faintly within. She waited and pushed again. Nothing. She stepped back and looked at the façade. All the drapes were drawn. Perhaps they were away. Perhaps she should have called from the airport. The house certainly looked unoccupied. As she was considering whether or not to stay, she saw one of the drapes twitch. Someone was peering out a second-floor window. She stepped back and rang again.

The intercom crackled.

“Yes? Who is it?” The voice was firm and clear.

“My name is Faith Fairchild. I’m here on behalf of Ursula Rowe.”

“Her daughter?”

“No, but like one.”

Faith wanted to establish her bona fides.

The door buzzed and she opened it, stepping into a large foyer tiled in black and white marble. It was hard to see the pattern, however, because of all the mail, junk and otherwise, strewn about.

“Well, don’t just stand there. We’ve been expecting you.”

The voice came from the back of the house. Faith walked toward it through a dining room, the furniture covered with dust so thick it would have provided hours of scribbling pleasure for a child. Several botanical prints hung on the wall, which also showed the outlines of other artwork that had been removed. The room smelled musty.

“We’re in here. Come on.” The voice was impatient.

“Here” turned out to be the kitchen and the disorder continued. Empty cans of cat food were piled in one corner and the sink was filled with dirty dishes. There was a small patio beyond a pair of French doors and the only light in the room was coming through the grimy glass. Faith, endowed with the native New Yorker real estate instinct, immediately began to see the place scrubbed clean, staged, and up for sale, calculating the price as she looked about for the house’s owner. It took a moment to distinguish the human occupants from the cats, as both looked gray with tangled coats. In the case of the nonfelines, the coats were layers of sweaters and hair that badly needed cutting—and washing. One of them stood.

“I’m Marguerite Winthrop and this is my mother, Mrs. Charles Winthrop,” she said regally. Faith wasn’t sure whether to extend her hand or curtsy. In the end she did neither, but took the chair Marguerite had indicated.

Apparently, however, it was Violet’s show.

“I knew Ursula would have to respond.” It was the same voice Faith had heard over the intercom. Faith tried to hold her temper. She thought of what the letters had done to Ursula. The crone in front of her suddenly reminded her of Sherman Munroe. Both their voices were filled with smug entitlement. That whatever they did would always have been justified merely by who they were.

“Mrs. Rowe was literally made ill by your letters. If you don’t stop sending them, we intend to seek legal action.”

Violet laughed. It was a deep, throaty laugh and Faith thought if she closed her eyes, she might see the beautiful young woman Violet had been. The woman whose voice sounded like money, like Fitzgerald’s Daisy Buchanan. There were also traces of a younger Violet beneath her rather grotesque makeup—a slash of red lipstick, purple eye shadow, powdery white foundation, and dark brows that had been penciled on in thin, surprised half-moons.

“Did you hear that, Marguerite? Little Ursula is threatening me with legal action. I suppose I should be quite terrified.”

Faith stood up. “This is obviously a waste of time. Mine, that is. I don’t know why you sent those hateful letters, but this is not a threat. If you send more, or attempt to contact Mrs. Rowe in any way, we will get a restraining order.”

“I believe the only one being restrained will be you. Now, Marguerite!”

Marguerite grabbed Faith and shoved some kind of cloth over her face. The woman was surprisingly agile and all those sweaters were concealing a strong body. Warm sweaters. Faith was feeling very warm herself. Very, very warm. Her body was on fire. She tried to pull off whatever it was Marguerite was holding over her nose and mouth. It had a sickeningly sweet smell. I have to breathe! I have to get away from these women! From this house! were Faith’s last thoughts for some time.

When she slowly became conscious again, she was indeed restrained—tied securely to the chair with ropes and bungee cords. Her vision cleared. The two women were drinking something from mugs advertising a local blood bank. She hoped the liquid was tea or coffee.

“Ah, you’re back,” Violet said.

After trying to move, Faith discovered her ankles were tied to the front chair legs and her arms, extended straight down, were pinned to the back ones. Her hands were free and she could move her fingers. Not that this did her any good. She had no idea how long she’d been out and she had a foul taste in her mouth. Her head ached.

“As soon as you feel you’ve recovered—it shouldn’t be long, we practiced with the chloroform on each other—you’re going to call Ursula and suggest a trade. What was the amount, Marguerite?”

“We thought a hundred thousand dollars was a nice round number.”

“Of course,” Violet said. “We want it transferred directly into our bank account here. Ursula was so thoughtful sending you on a weekday when all this business can be taken care of quickly. We were afraid it would be a weekend, which would drag things out.”

“Wait a minute. You must be insane! You’re holding me hostage until Ursula pays you?”

“That’s been our plan from the start, although we thought she’d send her actual daughter, or her son.”

They
were
insane. Faith felt as if she’d been transported to a remake of the film
Grey Gardens
.

“I’m not calling her,” she said. “And in any case, she doesn’t have that kind of money.”

“Oh, but she does, or she can get it easily. And I think you’ll find it increasingly unpleasant here if you don’t call.”

Faith willed herself not to let the terror she was starting to feel show. This couldn’t be happening. She was in the middle of New York City—on the Upper East Side, for goodness’ sake!

“It’s nothing personal. We’ve been driven to this by that crook Bernie Madoff. We should be tying him up—or that wife of his—but that would have been more complicated, and Bernie, at least, is not reachable. He ruined us! At this point we can’t even pay the electric bill.”

“Wait a minute. You may have lost your money through Madoff, along with a huge number of others”—Faith was tempted to add, Who are not tying people up, yet thought it wise not to dwell on the situation—“but your house is worth many millions.”

Violet looked aghast. “Sell our home! I’d starve to death first. I’ll have you know my husband, Charles Wendell Winthrop, bought this house for me when we first moved to New York City and he intended that I should live here for my entire life, as did he. When I do die, it will of course go to my daughter.”

Faith had the feeling Violet was now regarding her as some sort of malevolent real estate broker who had happened by to try to swindle her further.

“I won’t call Ursula. That’s final.”

Violet’s smile was nasty.

“Marguerite, dear, it’s time for you to practice your piano.” She added, “My daughter is an accomplished pianist who could have had a brilliant career were it not for the petty jealousies and dirty politics of the concert world. ‘Marguerite’ is French for daisy, a name that would have been too common. From birth I had intended her for great things. My husband used to call us his two flowers.”

The younger flower left, disappearing into the gloom of the dining room and thereafter to parts unknown.

“She’s a sensitive girl and I didn’t want her to overhear us.”

Faith could feel sweat start to trickle down various parts of her body.

“I’ve killed once and I will kill again, Mrs. Fairchild,” Violet said matter-of-factly. “If Ursula doesn’t wire the funds within twenty-four hours, you’ll be dead.”

It was the first part of what she said that struck Faith.

“It was
you,
not your husband—and certainly not Arnold Rowe.
You
killed Theo.”

Violet nodded. “Such a long time ago that it doesn’t really matter anymore. Not then, either. Theo Lyman was getting to be quite a bore. Every time I’d turn around, there he would be, acting like an idiot, trying to impress me. Oh, they had money, the Lymans, I’ll grant you that, but it was gone soon enough. Thank goodness I had the sense to stick with Charlie. And he with me. But then, he rather had to.” Violet smiled in reminiscence. “He was grateful. Oh yes, very grateful—starting that night—and I made sure he stayed that way. Yes, starting all those years ago on a warm summer night on Martha’s Vineyard . . .”

“What’s happened? You look terrible. Have you been in some kind of fight?”

“Violet, my God! You’ve got to help me. I don’t know what to do. It wasn’t my fault. He wouldn’t give me the money!”

“What are you talking about? Calm down! Here, come into the library. Nobody’s there.”

She stood with her back against the door so they wouldn’t be disturbed. Charles sat down on one of the couches and put his head in his hands. After a moment he looked up; his face was streaked with tears.

“I killed him. Theo’s dead. I swear it was an accident. He was laughing and wouldn’t listen. I pushed him. Maybe I hit him. I don’t remember. He fell against a bench.” Charles jumped to his feet and came toward her speaking rapidly.

“I never meant to hurt him. Just wanted to scare him a little. Oh God! What am I going to do? I’ll go to prison. No one will believe me!”

“I believe you, Charles. Start at the beginning. Where were you?”

“I need a drink. There must be something to drink in this place. What does he need with all these things?” Charles gestured wildly at the weapons displayed throughout the room.

“I’ll get you a drink in a minute. Tell me what happened from the start.” Violet kept her voice steady and calm. “Sit down again.”

Charles sat on an ottoman closer to Violet and looked up at her.

“I owe some men some money. A lot of money. If I don’t pay them first thing tomorrow morning they’ll go to my father—and they’ll hurt me. Said I wouldn’t be playing tennis for a long time. I kept telling Theo. Out in the gazebo in the woods. I didn’t want anyone to hear us. He was pretty loaded. Just laughed and wanted to go back to the party. Kept saying he didn’t have any money. Everything’s a blur. I got mad. You’ve got to believe me. I never meant to hurt him. He was so still. Didn’t move. I ran back here to find you.”

Violet nodded. “We don’t have much time. First, you were never in the gazebo tonight. Nobody saw you leave, did they?”

Charles shook his head.

“Next, I want you to give me ten minutes and then find a couple of people, people you don’t know—that won’t be hard in this crowd; I have no idea who these crashers are. Tell them Theo wants the Professor out in the gazebo right away. It won’t make sense to them, but they’ll think it’s a game and start shouting for him. Then find Rowe yourself. Keep an eye on him, but don’t let him see you. As soon as you see him leave the house, follow a little ways behind. Get Scooter and some others to go with you. Tell them something’s happened; you don’t know what. Now repeat it all back to me—and don’t have anything more to drink until later. When you leave now, go wash up and pull yourself together.”