Maggie stared at him and smiled, glad that he had not asked for a further response from her. “It’s fine, but Liam, I have to ask you something. Do you really think a stranger on drugs attacked Nuala?”
Liam appeared astonished at her question. “If not, who else?” he asked.
“But whoever did it must have seen that guests were expected and yet still took time to ransack the house.”
“Maggie, whoever did it was probably desperate to get a fix and searched the place for money or jewelry. The newspaper account said Nuala’s wedding ring was taken off her finger, so robbery must have been the motive.”
“Yes, the ring was taken,” Maggie acknowledged.
“I happen to know she had very little jewelry,” Liam said. “She wouldn’t let Uncle Tim give her an engagement ring. She said that two of them in one lifetime was enough, and besides, both of them had been stolen when she lived in New York. I remember her telling my mother after that happened that she never wanted to own anything except costume jewelry.”
“You know more than I do,” Maggie said.
“So except for whatever cash was around, her killer didn’t get much, did he? At least that gives me some satisfaction,” Liam said, his voice grim. He smiled, breaking the dark mood that had settled over them. “Now, tell me about your week. I hope Newport is beginning to get under your skin? Or better yet, let me continue to give you my life history.”
He told her how, as a child, he had counted the weeks in boarding school until it was time to go to Newport for the summer, about his decision to become a stockbroker like his father, about leaving his position at Randolph and Marshall and starting his own investment firm. “It’s pretty flattering that some gilt-edged clients elected to come with me,” he said. “It’s always scary to go out on your own, but their vote of trust led me to believe I’d made the right decision. And I had.”
By the time the crème brûlée had arrived, Maggie was fully relaxed. “I’ve learned more about you tonight than I knew from a dozen other dinners,” she told him.
“Maybe I’m a little different on my home territory,” he said. “And maybe I just want you to see what a terrific guy I am.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m also trying to let you know what a substantial guy I am. Just so you know, in these parts, I’m considered quite a catch.”
“Stop that kind of talk right now,” Maggie said, trying to sound firm, but unable to suppress a slight smile.
“Okay. Your turn. Now tell me about your week.”
Maggie was reluctant to really go into things. She did not want to destroy the almost festive mood of the evening. It was impossible to talk about the week and not to speak of Greta Shipley, but she put the emphasis on how much she had enjoyed her in the time she had spent with her, and then she told him about her blossoming friendship with Letitia Bainbridge.
“I knew Mrs. Shipley, and she was a very special lady,” Liam said. “And, as for Mrs. Bainbridge, well, she’s great,” he enthused. “A real legend around here. Has she filled you in on all the goings-on in Newport’s heyday?”
“A little.”
“Get her going sometime on her mother’s stories about Mamie Fish. She really knew how to shake up the old crew. There’s a great story about a dinner party she threw, when one of her guests asked to bring Prince del Drago from Corsica with him. Of course Mamie was delighted to give permission, so you can imagine her horror when ‘the prince’ turned out to be a monkey, in full evening dress.”
They laughed together. “Mrs. Bainbridge is probably one of the very few left whose parents took part in the famous 1890s parties,” Liam said.
“What’s nice is that Mrs. Bainbridge has so many protective family members nearby,” Maggie said. “Just yesterday, after she heard that Mrs. Shipley died, her daughter came over to take her to the doctor for a checkup, because she knew she’d be upset.”
“That daughter would be Sarah,” Liam said. Then he smiled. “Did Mrs. Bainbridge happen to tell you about the stunt my idiot cousin Earl pulled that sent Sarah into orbit?”
“No.”
“It’s priceless. Earl lectures about funeral customs. You’ve heard that, haven’t you? I swear the guy is batty. When everybody else is off playing golf or sailing, his idea of a good time is to spend hours in cemeteries, taking tombstone rubbings.”
“In cemeteries!” Maggie exclaimed.
“Yes, but that’s only a small part of it. What I’m getting to is the time he lectured on funeral practices to a group at Latham Manor, of all places. Mrs. Bainbridge wasn’t feeling well, but Sarah had been visiting her and attended the lecture.
“Earl included in his little talk the story about the Victorian bell ringers. It seems that wealthy Victorians were so afraid of being buried alive that they had a hole built into the top of their caskets, for an air vent reaching up to the surface of the ground. A string was tied to the finger of the presumed deceased, run through the air vent, and attached to a bell on top of the grave. Then someone was paid to keep watch for a week in case the person in the casket did, in fact, regain consciousness and try ringing the bell.”
“Dear God,” Maggie gasped.
“No, but here’s the best part now, the part about Earl. Believe it or not, he has a sort of museum up here near the funeral home that’s filled with all kinds of funeral symbols and paraphernalia, and he got the brainstorm to have a dozen replicas of a Victorian cemetery bell cast to use to illustrate the lecture. Without telling them what they were, the jerk passed them out to twelve of these ladies, all in their sixties and seventies and eighties, and tied the string attached to them onto their ring fingers. Then he told them to hold the bell in their other hand, wiggle their fingers, and pretend they were in a casket and trying to communicate with the grave watcher.”
“How appalling!” Maggie said.
“One of the old girls actually fainted. Mrs. Bainbridge’s daughter collected Earl’s bells and was so irate she practically threw him and his bells off the premises.”
Liam paused, then in a more somber voice added, “The worrisome part is that I think Earl relishes telling that story himself.”
49
NEIL HAD TRIED TO PHONE MAGGIE SEVERAL TIMES, FIRST from the locker room of the club, and again as soon as he got home. Either she’s been out all day, or she’s in and out, or she’s not answering the phone, he thought. But even if she was in and out, she surely would have seen his note.
Neil accompanied his parents to a neighbor’s home for cocktails, where he tried Maggie again at seven. He then elected to take his own car to dinner so that if he did reach her later, it might be possible to stop by her house for a drink.
There were six people at the table in the dinner party at Canfield House. But even though the lobster Newburg was superb, and his dinner companion, Vicky, the daughter of his parents’ friends, was a very attractive banking executive from Boston, Neil was wildly restless.
Knowing it would be rude to skip the after-dinner drink in the bar, he agonized through the chitchat, and when everyone finally stood up to go at ten-thirty, Neil managed to refuse gracefully Vicky’s invitation to join her and her friends for tennis on Sunday morning. Finally, with a sigh of relief, he was in his own car.
He checked the time; it was quarter of eleven. If Maggie was home and had gone to bed early, he didn’t want to disturb her. He justified his decision to drive by her house by telling himself that he simply wanted to see if her car was in the driveway—just to be sure she was still in Newport.
His initial excitement at seeing that her car was indeed there was tempered when he realized that another car was parked in front of her place, a Jaguar with Massachusetts plates. Neil drove by at a snail’s pace and was rewarded by seeing the front door open. He caught a glimpse of a tall man standing next to Maggie, then, feeling like a voyeur, he accelerated and turned the corner at Ocean Drive, heading back to Portsmouth, his stomach churning with regret and jealousy.
Saturday, October 5th
50
THE REQUIEM FOR GRETA SHIPLEY AT TRINITY CHURCH was well-attended. As she sat and listened to the familiar prayers, Maggie realized that all the people who had been invited to Nuala’s dinner party were in attendance.
Dr. Lane and his wife, Odile, sat with a number of the guests from the residence, including everyone who had been at Mrs. Shipley’s table on Wednesday evening, with the exception of Mrs. Bainbridge.
Malcolm Norton and his wife, Janice, were there. He had a hangdog look, Maggie thought. When he passed her on the way in, he stopped to say he had been trying to reach her and would like to meet with her after the funeral.
Earl Bateman had come over to speak to her before the service began. “After all this, when you think about Newport, I’m very much afraid that your memories of the place will be of funerals and cemeteries,” he said, his eyes owlish behind lightly tinted round-frame sunglasses.
He hadn’t waited for an answer but had walked past her to take an empty place in the first pew.
Liam arrived halfway through the service and sat down next to her. “Sorry,” he murmured in her ear. “Damn alarm didn’t go off.” He took her hand, but after an instant she withdrew it. She knew that she was the object of many sidelong glances and did not want to have rumors swirling about her and Liam. But, she admitted to herself, her sense of isolation was relieved when his firm shoulder brushed against hers.
When she had filed past the casket at the funeral home, Maggie had studied for an instant the tranquil, lovely face of the woman she had known so briefly yet liked so much. The thought had crossed her mind that Greta Shipley and Nuala and all their other good friends were probably having a joyous reunion.
That thought had brought with it the nagging question of the Victorian bells.
When she passed the three people who had been introduced as Mrs. Shipley’s cousins, their faces were fixed in appropriately serious expressions, but she detected there none of the honest, raw pain that she saw in the eyes and countenances of Mrs. Shipley’s close friends from Latham Manor.
I’ve got to find out when and how each of those women whose graves I visited died, and how many of them had close relatives, Maggie thought, information that she had recognized as pertinent during her visit to Mrs. Bainbridge.
For the next two hours, she felt as if she were operating on some kind of remote control—observing, recording, but not feeling. “I am a camera” was her own reaction to herself as, Liam at her side, she walked away from Greta Shipley’s grave after the interment.
She felt a hand on her arm. A handsome woman with silver hair and remarkably straight carriage stopped her. “Ms. Holloway,” she said, “I’m Sarah Bainbridge Cushing. I want to thank you for visiting Mother yesterday. She so appreciated it.”
Sarah. This was the daughter who had tangled with Earl about his lecture on Victorian bells, Maggie reflected. She wanted to have a chance to talk privately to her.
In the next breath, Sarah Cushing provided the opportunity: “I don’t know how long you’re staying in Newport, but tomorrow morning I’m taking Mother out for brunch, and I’d be delighted if you could join us.”
Maggie agreed readily.
“You’re staying at Nuala’s house, aren’t you? I’ll pick you up at eleven o’clock, if that’s all right.” With a nod, Sarah Cushing turned and dropped back to rejoin the group she had been with.
“Let’s have a quiet lunch,” Liam suggested. “I’m sure you’re not up to any more post-funeral get-togethers.”
“No, I’m not. But I really do want to get back to the house. I simply have to go through Nuala’s clothes and sort them out.”
“Dinner tonight, then?”
Maggie shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m going to stay at the sort-and-pack job till I drop.”
“Well, I have to see you before I go back to Boston tomorrow night,” Liam protested.
Maggie knew he wasn’t going to allow her to say no. “Okay, call me,” she said. “We’ll figure something out.”
He left her at her car. She was turning the key in the ignition when a rap at the window startled her. It was Malcolm Norton. “We need to talk,” he said urgently.
Maggie decided to bite the bullet and not waste his time or hers. “Mr. Norton, if it’s about buying Nuala’s house, I can only tell you this: I have absolutely no plans of selling it at this time, and I’m afraid that, absolutely unsolicited, I have already received a substantially higher offer than yours.”
Murmuring, “I’m sorry,” she slid the selector into DRIVE. She found it almost painful to see the horrified shock in the man’s expression.
51
NEIL STEPHENS AND HIS FATHER TEED UP AT SEVEN o’clock and were back in the clubhouse by noon. This time, Neil heard the phone being picked up after the second ring. When he recognized Maggie’s voice, he let out a sigh of relief.
Sounding disjointed, even to himself, he told her how he had phoned her after she left on Friday, how he had gone to Jimmy Neary to try to get Nuala’s name so he could contact her here, how he had learned of Nuala’s death, and was so terribly sorry . . . “Maggie, I have to see you, today,” he finished.
He sensed her hesitation, then listened as she told him she had to stay in and finish clearing out her stepmother’s personal effects.
“No matter how busy you are, you still have to eat dinner,” he pleaded. “Maggie, if you won’t let me take you out, I’m going to arrive on your doorstep with meals-on-wheels.” Then he thought about the man with the Jaguar. “Unless somebody else is already doing that,” he added.
At her response, a smile broke out on his face. “Seven o’clock? Terrific. I found a great place for lobster.”
* * *
“I gather you reached this Maggie of yours,” Robert Stephens said dryly when Neil joined him at the door of the clubhouse.
“Yes, I did. We’re going out to dinner tonight.”
“Well, then, we’ll be happy for you to bring her along with us. You know we’re having your mother’s birthday dinner at the club tonight.”
“Her birthday isn’t until tomorrow,” Neil protested.
“Thanks for telling me! You’re the one who asked that we have the celebration this evening. You said you wanted to get started home by midafternoon tomorrow.”
Neil stood with his hand to his mouth, as though in deep thought. Then he silently shook his head. Robert Stephens smiled. “A lot of people consider your mother and me good company.”
“You are good company,” Neil protested feebly. “I’m sure Maggie will enjoy being with you.”
“Of course she will. Now let’s get home. Another client of mine, Laura Arlington, is coming over at two. I want you to go over what’s left of her stock portfolio and see if you can recommend any way to upgrade her income. Thanks to that sleazy broker, she’s really in bad shape.”
I don’t want to risk telling Maggie over the phone about the change in plans, Neil thought. She’d probably bow out. I’ll show up at her doorstep and plead my case.
* * *
Two hours later, Neil sat with Mrs. Arlington in his father’s office. She is in bad shape, he thought. She had once owned blue-chip stocks that paid good dividends but had sold them all to buy into another of those crazy venture offerings. Ten days ago, Mrs. Arlington had been persuaded to buy one hundred thousand shares of some piece of trash at five dollars a share. The next morning the stock went to five and a quarter, but by that afternoon it had begun to plunge. Now it was valued below a dollar.
So five hundred thousand dollars in stock is reduced to about eighty thousand, assuming there’s even a buyer, Neil thought, glancing with pity across the desk at the ashen-faced woman whose entwined hands and slumping shoulders betrayed her agitation. She’s only Mother’s age, he thought, sixty-six, yet right now she looks twenty years older.
“It’s pretty awful, isn’t it?” Mrs. Arlington asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Neil said.
“You see,
that was the money I was going to use when one of the larger apartments in Latham Manor became available. But I’ve always felt guilty about the idea of using so much money selfishly. I have three children, and when Douglas Hansen was so persuasive, and Mrs. Downing told me how much money she had made in less than a week with his help, I thought, well, if I double that money, I’ll have an inheritance for the children as well as being able to live in Latham Manor.”
She tried to blink back tears. “Then not only did I lose my money last week, but the very next day I got a call that one of the big apartments was available, the one that Nuala Moore had been scheduled to take.”
“Nuala Moore?” Neil said quickly.
“Yes, the woman who was murdered last week.” Mrs. Arlington held a handkerchief to the tears that she could no longer hold back. “Now I don’t have the apartment, and the children not only don’t get an inheritance but one of them may be stuck with having to take me in.”
She shook her head. “I’ve known this for over a week, but seeing the confirmation of the stock purchase in writing this morning just about did me in.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Oh, well.”
Laura Arlington stood up and attempted a smile. “You’re just as nice a young man as your father keeps telling all of us you are. So you think I should just leave what’s left of my portfolio alone?”
“Absolutely,” Neil said. “I’m sorry this happened, Mrs. Arlington.”
“Well, think of all the people in this world who don’t have half a million dollars ‘to piss away,’ as my grandson would put it.” Her eyes widened. “I cannot believe I said that! Forgive me.” Then a hint of a smile appeared on her lips. “But you know something? I feel a lot better for saying it. Your mother and father wanted me to stop in and visit. But I think I’d better run along. Do thank them for me, please.”