A Will To Murder (9 page)

Jac, who had been watching the newcomers closely, crossed her arms and looked meaningfully at her sister.   “You see?” Jac declared, “you wasted a good cry over nothing.”

Rose was taken aback by the Wileys’ manners, but Katherine was undismayed.  “Welcome to Rollingwood!” the old lady exclaimed.  “I am
so
happy I can finally receive you here.  It’s a shame your poor mother didn’t live to see this day.”  Katherine made a motion as if to embrace her niece, but Colette’s cigarette was poking out prominently, and her hands did not move from her hips.  Katherine diverted her embrace to Lance, who was startled to receive such attention.  Rose stepped forward to greet Colette, who unbent enough to proffer two fingers to shake, but when Katherine again tried to hug her niece, Colette stepped back, ducked her head, and coughed a huge, thick, phlegmy, basso cough.  Arthur’s romantic fantasy shriveled a little.

“Excuse me,” said Colette, throwing her blonde hair back, “I have bronchitis.”  She took a deep drag on her cigarette.

“And you’re smoking?” asked Armagnac pointedly.

“Sure,” Colette replied.  “Why not?”

Armagnac cast a wall-eyed frog look back at Mrs. Marshpool through the windows.  At this summons, the housekeeper came out to stand beside him.

Bert did not approach when introduced, and neither of the Wileys tried to shake hands with him, nodding instead.  Arthur stayed hidden behind his father when Katherine pronounced his name, hoping that Mrs. Marshpool hadn’t seen him.  He was a little disappointed, though, when Colette didn’t even look his way.

“We’ll have Willowby collect your bags,” said the housekeeper.  A note of caution had entered her voice, as if the arrival of the Wileys had caught her unprepared.  “Won’t you come inside?”

“Letitia,” Armagnac chided.  “Excuse me.  I’m the host here, remember.  Won’t you come inside?”

“Excuse me,” interrupted Katherine, shoving Armagnac back with her fist.  “
I’m
the host.  Come in, come in.  I expect you (she addressed Colette) would want to lie down as soon as possible because of your unfortunate illness.  You must be worn out.  Your rooms are already made up, and they’re on the third floor.”

Colette gave no sign of having heard.  She was inspecting Rollingwood’s black exterior in a desultory way.  Willowby appeared and hefted the luggage, but discovered the two bags of weights to be beyond him.  “I’m afraid someone is going to have to help me carry these in,” the chauffeur said.

With a look of contempt, Lance hefted both bags.  “Hey dude, you could do it if you lifted regularly like me.”

Whatever retort Willowby might have made was kept professionally inside the chauffeur.

“Hey,” Lance commented after he entered the living room, “this isn’t too bad.”       

“Smart-alec shopgirl type,” Jac declared to Rose.  “Though her clothes aren't quite good enough for that.”  Rose tried to shush her sister with a hand.

“Why don’t I show you your rooms?” Katherine said.

“Yeah, hurry up and get that shit upstairs,” barked Lance to Willowby, “there’s a Raiders game on TV I’m not about to miss.”

The chauffeur met Jac’s eyes, but Jac only smiled pertly.  “Hurry up,” Mrs. Salisbury said.  

Willowby ported upstairs, his face bland.  Lance, Colette, and Katherine followed him.

After they left, Bert asked his son, “What do you think of your cousins, Bonnie and Clyde?”

“Her name is Colette,” said Arthur with a scowl.

“Kid, I was only teasing.  Well, what do you think of them?”

“She’s really pretty,” said the boy, dazedly.

Jac bristled at this.  “I don’t think your admiration will last very long,” she said.  

Upstairs, Katherine finished showing the Wileys their bedrooms, then left them alone to freshen up.  Willowby tried to linger in Colette’s room a moment to ask if she needed anything, but she ducked out immediately, a tissue held to her nose.  Like Arthur, she fascinated Willowby.  The chauffeur trailed after her when she entered Lance’s room, but she shut the door in his face.

“God, these people,” said Colette, withdrawing the tissue.  “You can’t get away from them.  And did you see my room?  The drapes and the bedspread are just thick with ground-in dirt.  I can’t stand the thought of touching anything.  This house must not have been cleaned in years.  It stinks of mold, too.  Old houses always have this horrible smell.”

Lance dropped his weights on the rug, raising a puff of dust, and Colette recoiled.  (Mrs. Marshpool indeed had not been very thorough).  Colette snatched a small bottle of Lily-of-the-Valley potpourri spray from her purse and spritzed the room thoroughly.

“Hey, cut it out!  Keep your perfume to yourself, Christ.  Now it stinks worse than it did before.  How long does that shit take to fade, anyway?”

She smiled.  “It’ll linger until after we leave.”

“Jesus,” Lance moaned.  “Hey,” he said in a different tone.  “Look at all this stuff.”  He picked up an Art Nouveau faience vase.  “How much do you think this is worth?”  He tossed the vase into his bag.

“Fifty cents,” snorted Colette.  “They wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave the really good antiques in the same room with you.”

“Some of this has got to be worth money,” Lance objected, stuffing more nicknacks into his bag.

“Don’t strip the room yet, fool.  Do you want to go to jail before they read the will?”

“Hey, I intend to get some money out of this.  You don’t think that old guy left us anything, do you?  He never saw us in his life.”

“The lawyer wouldn’t have invited us unless he had.”  Casually, she tapped ashes into a piece of Dresden China.

Lance eyed her with open-mouthed pensiveness for a moment, then began to unload his bag.  Colette took a drag on her cigarette and gave a spasmodic, ghastly cough.  When she recovered, she groaned, “Well, I suppose we ought to go down and mix with those people.  Do you remember any of their names?”

Downstairs, Armagnac tried to make conversation with Lance, though with misgivings.  “I believe there’s a provision in the will for you about a car,” said Boyle with strained heartiness.

“Oh yeah?  Like that really old car I saw your chauffeur polishing by the garage?  Did you hear that, Colette?  I could make a souped-up highrider out of it.”  

“Letitia, I need some aspirin, please,” Boyle keened.  

“Are you in college now, or planning to go?” Rose asked Colette politely.

“Forget college,” Armagnac interjected, “both of you should have gone to finishing school.”

Colette eyed him coolly.  “I am currently enrolled at a boarding school in Switzerland.”

“I see callowness, shallowness, and shopping are the course offerings at Swiss boarding schools nowadays,” Boyle retorted.  “Are you a giggler?  I despise teenage girls who giggle.  I see them gathered in groups all over the place tittering constantly at the most feeble of juvenile trivia.  Do you know why they’re always giggling?  They’re hooked on their own brain opium.  Laughter is a shock reaction, and the human brain releases small quantities of opiates in response to shock.  By trying to giggle constantly, girls are giving themselves hit after hit.  They’re all drug addicts.”

At this, Colette finally did meet Armagnac’s eyes, the first time she had gazed directly at anyone since her arrival.  Then she gave a single hoarse chuckle, but the laugh turned into a booming cough as the bronchitis took over.  “I need to lie down,” said Colette in reply to the various offers of aid.  She made, however, no motion to move.

“Well,” said Katherine, “We can--”

She petered out as Colette zapped the air a few times with her potpourri spray.  Some of it landed on Katherine.

“I’m going to have to lie down somewhere else besides my room,” said Colette blandly, “all that dust and mold is aggravating my lungs.  And I can’t possibly walk up and down all those stairs in my condition.”

“She’s beginning to aggravate
me
,” growled Jac softly.

“I’m afraid you must not have a very good housekeeper,” Colette continued.  Mrs. Marshpool bristled.

“If someone could provide some cough syrup,” Colette added, looking wan, “it would help.”

The housekeeper turned her back sharply as if she hadn’t heard of cough syrup in her life.  Flustered, Katherine left the room to find some.

“Letitia,” said Armagnac in a conspiratorial tone, “I need you in the library.”

“Hey, where’s the TV?” Lance asked.

“Let me show you,” said Bert unctuously.  After a dose of the Wileys, Cummings was quite willing to help dislodge them.  He led Lance up to the recreation room.  Once there, Bert watched from the doorway as Lance switched on the TV.  “So you’re a sports fan, huh?” Cummings asked.

A football was intercepted.  Lance made a dry heaving noise of approval and stabbed an arm into the air.

“I take it you are.” Bert showed his teeth.  “Your sister seems to have made quite an impression on everybody.”

Without looking away, Lance waved a dismissive hand.  “Eh, she’s practically a vegetable.  All she ever does is eat the lipstick off her mouth.”

Richie ran in and danced up and down in front of the TV.  “Are you really my cousin?  Bah hah hah!”

“C’mere,” said Lance, “so I can squeeze your face till the snot pops out your ears.”

The conversation sinking, Bert left.

Downstairs, the family had withdrawn from the living room, leaving Colette alone.  Ms. Wiley had lain down on the L-shaped sofa.  Used tissues began to fill a Chinese urn, and from time to time the cigarette, when not performing its office, was placed on the edge of the rosewood coffee table.  A small scorch mark gradually began to mar the table’s finish, and ashes were tapped along its surface as well.

Arthur was spying on his cousin from around the end of the sofa, unable to believe her ethereal beauty.

Without looking up, Colette said, “Why don’t you go out and play, little boy.  I want to be alone.  I’m sick.”

Faced with this, Arthur had to obey.  Then a thought struck him.  “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

Colette still didn’t glance at him, but she pursed her lips a little.  “You could tell that woman in the lab coat, who seems to be some sort of servant, that she could bring me a pot of tea.”

Arthur hurled joyfully towards the kitchen, then halted when he realized he’d just been asked to face Mrs. Smaug-pool.  The boy swallowed hard.  He would do it.  Maybe Colette would smile and ask him to stay if he succeeded.  Bravely, he strode on.  But just as he was about to enter the kitchen, the door swung open and Katherine emerged with the cough syrup.  Behind her came Phil with a box of kleenex.  Then Willowby went past bearing a hot pad.  The boy entered the kitchen, but only Rose, Jac, and Sheila were there.

“She’s still in the library with your uncle,” Rose said to Arthur’s query.  “If you need tea, Sheila can make some.”

“It’s for Colette,” the boy hissed excitedly.

A spasm crossed Jac’s face.  The door swung open again under Willowby’s hand.

“She wants some juice,” Katherine called from the couch.

“Juice,” Phil relayed hoarsely to Willowby.

“Colette needs some juice,” said Willowby politely to the occupants of the kitchen.

“We heard,” said Jac in a deadly tone.

“Lemonade!” Katherine called from the couch.

“Lemonade,” said Phil to Willowby.

“Some lemonade please,” Willowby said to Sheila.

“Your relay works very well,” said Jac acidly. “Oh, don’t bother, Sheila.  I’ll make it.  I might as well do my part.”  She plucked some lemons from the refrigerator and put them in the juicer herself.  Apprehension crossed Rose’s face.

“She doesn’t want any tea?” Arthur asked plaintively.

“No tea?” Willowby called back.

“Tea?” Phil yelled.

“No!” said Katherine.

“No,” said Phil.

“Fraid not, Arthur.”

Arthur’s heart plunged.

“Here, Arthur,” said Jac with a smile.  “You can carry the lemonade in.”

Happy again, the boy carried the precious glass like an alter boy and put it down on the coffee table.  Colette picked it up and drank.  Then she spat lemonade out and flew upwards, emitting a horrible, strangling cough.  It was so prolonged and violent that she sagged forward as though about to vomit.

Appalled, Arthur yelled for help.  People gathered around the couch, including a disgusted-looking Jac.

When Colette recovered, she said, “It’s pure lemon juice.  There’s no sugar in it.  It nearly suffocated me.”

“Darn,” said Jac.

“You smelly little boy,” Colette rasped.  “You did that to me deliberately!”

“No!” Arthur shrieked.  “No!  I just carried it in!”

The potpourri spray was nearby, and Colette zapped him with it.

“No,” shrilled Arthur.  “I didn’t do it!”

“Go away,” Colette ordered.

Defeated, the boy went upstairs.  He was beginning to think that maybe he didn’t like his cousin Colette after all.

Mrs. Marshpool and Armagnac finally came out of the library and stopped at the foot of the couch.  The housekeeper cleared her throat, staring hard at Colette.

Jac sniffed at the sight and went upstairs, giving her husband a menacing glare as she passed him.  Phil jumped, suddenly aware of his wife’s irritation, and he left as well.

“Of course you can’t stay on that couch all night,” said Mrs. Marshpool icily.   Colette ignored her.

“We go to bed around ten p.m.,” the housekeeper continued.

“I can’t sleep in that room,” said Colette languidly. “It’s dusty and I’m sick.”  The girl took another pull on her cigarette.

“We have no other place for you to stay!” said Mrs. Marshpool sharply.

“Oh, let her sleep here if she likes,” Rose exclaimed.

“That is not possible!” the housekeeper cried.

“Yes it is,” Katherine interrupted.  

“Now see here, Aunt Katherine,” Armagnac began.

“Oh be quiet!” the old lady retorted.  “Ms. Wiley is sick, and that takes precedence over every other consideration.  This isn’t James’ house anymore, and I won’t stand to see a guest be treated with such rudeness!”