Read An Illustrated Death Online
Authors: Judi Culbertson
An Illustrated Death (10 page)
W
HEN
I
GOT
to the compound I went straight to Bianca’s cottage. She opened the door wearing a silky pale blue robe with matching pajamas, cinched tightly around her narrow waist. “I didn’t go up to the house for breakfast,” she said.
“I wanted to tell you that I’d love to do the book illustrations.” Seeing my photos again had been like coming across a forgotten love letter and realizing the feeling was still there.
“Oh. Great.” But her voice was flat and I wondered if she was having second thoughts.
“I read your poems last night. I think they’re wonderful.” Strange, anyway, certainly not what people would consider poems for children. And yet their undercurrents, their oddity, were feelings children would understand. One kept repeating in my head:
The old woman outside the fair
Told him it was a lie.
“Nobody sent you those postcards,” she said.
“They dropped down from the sky.”
Bianca brightened at my praise.
I was hoping she would offer me a cup of tea and keep me out of the studio awhile longer. I hadn’t told Regan I was working in that sacred space and didn’t know what she’d say if she found me there.
But Bianca turned toward the back of the cottage, probably to get dressed, and I started for the door.
My hand was on the knob to leave when there was a pounding on the other side.
Regan already?
I braced myself for a scene.
Bianca moved past me to open the door.
Instead it was Bessie who half-fell inside, her face contorted. “Miss Bianca, there’s a woman up at the house, says she’s looking for your aunt.”
“A woman?”
“She
says
she’s your sister. She’s after upsetting Miss Eve!”
“Oh, for God—let me get some clothes on and I’ll go back with you.” Bianca turned to me, and I saw from her expression that she hoped I would come too. It only took her a moment to pull on jeans and a white turtleneck under a navy V-neck sweater. Her ginger hair was a cloud around her face.
As we climbed the hill, Bianca cross-examined Bessie. “Exactly what did she say?”
“We was in the sitting room, when I heard someone banging at the front door. I went to see, and this lady said she come to see her Aunt Gretchen. I said she wasn’t here, and she pushed right inside.” Bessie was gasping now with the exertion of climbing. Beads like clear jewels had appeared on her dark forehead. “I kept saying Miss Gretchen wasn’t home, and then Miss Eve came out.
“
She
says, ‘What are you doing here? You get out of here!’ But the other one kept saying, ‘What have you done with Gretchen?’ I thought I better get you.” She gave a worried look at the house.
Bessie sounded sincerely upset, and yet . . . Miss Eve? Miss Bianca? This wasn’t Birmingham in 1952.
Send me Hattie McDaniel from Central Casting.
Bessie turned her head then and looked at me. She didn’t smile, yet there was a look of amusement in her deep brown eyes as if I had caught her out.
We climbed the porch steps quickly.
M
OTHER AND DAUGHTER
turned as we came into the living room. I was surprised at how little resemblance I saw between them. Eve with her white hair and creased face was older, of course, but her facial structure was delicate, more refined. Today Regan was wearing a beautiful multicolored mohair sweater and jeans, her hair tamed into a ponytail. What struck me was how beautiful both women were. They might have been actresses rehearsing for a play.
“What’s going on?” Bianca demanded.
“She’s poking around where she’s not welcome. She knows she’s not allowed here.”
“You didn’t even call me when Dad died! I had to find out from the news.”
“But why are you here now?” Bianca interrupted. “Isn’t Gretchen with you?”
“Why would she be with me? She’d never go off without telling you, you know that.”
“Then how did you know she was missing?”
Uh-oh.
“I didn’t. But she never would have missed the memorial and my art show. I came down to find out why. Then I find out you don’t even know where she is!”
”Because we thought she was with you.”
I kept expecting Eve to jump back in, but she was watching her daughters calmly, as if they were squabbling teenagers.
“You searched her room?”
“Of course. Her bed hadn’t been slept in. We didn’t know she was gone until Sunday because the car was back.”
“Which car?”
“The Toyota.”
“That old wreck’s still around?”
Eve came to life at that, pointing at Regan, nearly jabbing her chest. With her white hair and bony finger she looked unearthly, a Shakespearean wraith. “You. Go away now.”
“Oh, shut up, you old witch.” Regan pushed her mother’s hand away, then moved toward the door. “I’m going to look outside.”
Bianca turned to Eve. “Are you okay, Mama?”
Eve flipped her hand at her, as if dismissing an underling.
O
N THE WAY
back to Bianca’s chalet, I learned why Regan was persona non grata.
“Why does your mother hate Regan so much?”
“Hate her? She doesn’t hate her. She’s her
daughter
.”
“She sure doesn’t want her around.”
We had reached the chalet and Bianca migrated to one of the yellow rockers on the small stoop. I sat down in the other.
“Mama’s never been that warm and loving . . .” Her voice trailed away as she perhaps realized the gap between not showing affection and ordering your child off the premises.
I waited.
“It’s mostly about money. When Regan decided to leave she demanded what she called her inheritance. Dad gave it to her finally, but my mother was furious. No matter how much money there is, she takes it personally if any goes to anyone but herself. I think it was Gretchen who pressured him into doing it.
“Actually, it’s
all
about money. When the rest of us wanted our share to do things too, the bank was closed. My father just laughed and said we’d have to wait till he was gone. Now he’s gone and my mother’s worse than he was. At least he gave us an allowance.”
“And she doesn’t?”
“Well . . .”
I remembered that Claude was good with a checkbook.
We rocked.
“I thought maybe it was because of Regan’s husband being Japanese.”
“Dai?” She gave a short laugh. “That was the icing on the cake. He was our
gardener.
So the wedding wasn’t exactly the social event of the year. The irony is, Regan’s doing better than the rest of us now. Financially, I mean.”
But not emotionally. We saw Regan hurtling toward us as if being chased by a serial killer. We jumped up at the same time and ran to meet her halfway.
Her face was white. She opened her mouth several times but nothing came out.
“What is it?” Bianca cried.
Regan pointed mutely in the direction of the pool.
We couldn’t get her to tell us. When her teeth started to chatter, Bianca said, “Go back to my cottage. We’ll look.”
The grass felt wet through my sandals and made me wish I were eight again, faced with nothing more complicated than how to spend a beautiful fall day. I didn’t want to see what had shocked Regan. I hoped it was a dead animal that Regan hadn’t gotten close enough to identify.
We moved through an opening in the archway of cedars and onto the tile surround. But the pool looked the same as the other day. Only the water sprites and mermaids, so lively then, now seemed sinister.
“There’s nothing here,” Bianca said.
“Wait.” I moved to the edge of the deep end and looked down. The sweet, meaty, metallic smell ambushed me before I saw anything. Breathing through my mouth, I saw what Regan had.
I put out my arm to hold Bianca back, but it was too late. She came up beside me for a moment, then made a gagging sound. Overcome by the stench, she rushed out to the grass. I heard her being sick on the other side of the hedge, and waited until I thought she was finished. It was less out of delicacy for her feelings and more because the sight of someone vomiting is contagious. I was taking quick, shallow breaths through my mouth myself.
When Bianca was quiet again, I steeled myself and stepped through hedge arch back to her. “Are you okay?”
“Okay? Are you kidding? How can anything ever be ‘okay’ again?”
R
EGAN WAS HUNCHED
over on the sofa, arms between her knees. Her head jerked up when we came in. “Was that
Gretchen
?”
Bianca went over and sat down next to her. The sisters held each other tightly like shipwreck survivors.
I leaned against the door, then went over and dropped into the chair opposite them. I felt as weak as if my body could blow away—the way I had felt in Port Lewis several weeks ago when a fast-moving car hadn’t seen me in the crosswalk and slammed on its brakes, stopping less than an inch away. The car was so close that I could feel the heat from the hood and at first I thought it
had
struck me. I barely made it to the other side and collapsed on the curb, pressing my head dizzily against my knees. The people around me had rushed to help as the car sped away.
Now we sat in silence, trying to understand what we had seen.
“It must have been the wheelbarrow,” Regan croaked finally.
I stared at her. That had been no wheelbarrow in the pool.
“What wheelbarrow?” Bianca whispered.
“Gretchen’s wheelbarrow, the one she always used in the garden. It was lying on its side above where . . .”
“You think she tripped on it?”
“How else did she fall?”
It brought the image I had been trying to suppress fully back. A crumpled navy sweat suit with a snake of white seam along the leg, an arm thrown out uselessly, a bloated, blue-tinged face bobbing in the filthy water. Strands of golden hair, a familiar color.
“We have to call someone,” I said.
Bianca looked at me, then gave her head a shake. “You’re right. I’ll call McConnell’s.”
“Who’s McConnell?”
“The funeral home who—”
“I mean you need to call the police.”
“But it was an accident!”
“This is private property,” Regan added. “It happened on private property.”
“No police. No way.” Bianca was implacable. “We’re not having the police here again.” She moved as if to stand up, then dropped back onto the couch.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I knew how upset they were, but what were they thinking? Next they would be planning to dig a grave and bury Gretchen themselves.
“I know someone I can call,” I said.
“You mean a lawyer?”
“No, a detective. He’s with Suffolk County.”
“Which word didn’t you understand, Delhi—‘no’ or ‘police’?”
“Someone has to move Gretchen. The funeral home won’t do that.”
“Of course they will.”
But I was fishing around for my woven bag and I found the phone inside. Frank Marselli’s number was in my list of saved contacts from the Old Frigate case, and I pressed “Dial” quickly.
He answered as if he had been waiting for my call. “Marselli.”
“Um—hi.” One of those horrible moments when you forget your own name. “This is Delhi Laine. I don’t know if you remember me, but—”
“How could I forget you, Ms. Laine?”
It wasn’t exactly the tone of someone with fond memories. When he had been investigating the deaths at the Old Frigate Bookstore, he had often seemed exasperated and infuriated by me. On the other hand, his integrity was unimpeachable.
I tried to talk quietly. “I’m in Springs and my friend’s aunt has been missing for three days. We found her in a pool with a little water and it . . . looks bad.”
“They don’t have police in the Hamptons?”
“I know. But they don’t want to call anyone. It’s complicated.”
“It always is with you, isn’t it? You’re lucky I have to be out east later today for another case. Call the locals, use 911, and don’t touch anything! Where are you, anyway?”
I gave him the exact location, then said good-bye.
“He’s coming.” I slid my phone shut. “By himself.” I didn’t pass on the rest of his message.
Regan pushed up from the couch. “I’m going home.”
“Home? You mean back upstate?”
“Where do you think? I need my family.”
“He’ll need to talk to you.”
“You talk to him. I have to pick up my kids from school.”
It was10:30 a.m. “But you were the one who went looking for Gretchen.”
“So what? He’s your friend.”
Frank Marselli was hardly my friend. In July he had acted as if I were a plague inflicted on innocent police officers. What was the opposite of romantic interest? Although divorced, he was obsessively devoted to his kids and his job and would have done nothing to jeopardize either. That was what made him trustworthy.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She gave me a mulish glare and stood up.
“Are you okay to drive? Why don’t you wait awhile and calm down.”
“I’m fine, okay? They don’t want me here and I don’t want to be here. Especially
now
.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” Bianca said.
“I said no.”
I watched Regan open the door and disappear, knowing I couldn’t make her stay.
Bianca moved to her desk. She pulled open a dainty desk drawer and took out what looked like a memorial card. Then she picked up the cordless receiver and moved toward the kitchen.
After three or four minutes she came back in and slammed the phone into its holder.
“What did they say?” I asked.
“They need a doctor’s note first.”
“A doctor’s note?”
“A death certificate. Whatever.”
I never say,
I told you so
, but the words seemed to hang in the air.
“So what happens now?”
“You have to tell your family.”
“Tell them what? We don’t know anything for sure.”
Well, we know that Gretchen won’t be making lunch.
B
IANCA COULDN’T SIT
still. She wandered around her pretty living room, touching knickknacks and repeatedly straightening the small landscape painting over her desk. One of Nate’s? “I can’t take this in. Every time I forget it for a minute then remember, it’s like being slapped all over again. When I was little I loved Gretchen better than my mother. Regan still does. It’s funny, but Gretchen was the only one who
didn’t
think Puck was adorable. She hated his tricks.”
Was Gretchen’s death part of a prank that had gone horribly wrong? Maybe Puck had lured her outside to frighten her, and the joke had turned tragic. “When are you going to tell them?”
“When we—ohmygod, I’m supposed to do lunch! I completely forgot about it.”
Who could worry about lunch now? “Can’t you order pizza or something?”
She stared at me. “Pizza? You think this family eats
pizza
?”
The picture of them using their hands to munch on slices in that formal dining room almost made me laugh. “McDonald’s cheeseburgers then. Except no, McDonald’s doesn’t deliver.”
She didn’t understand that I was teasing her. “My family has only ever had home-cooked meals for lunch. Lunch is our big meal. Mama would die if I brought in pizza. Or cheeseburgers.”
“People won’t feel like eating anyway when they find out.”
“Oh, they will. They’ll be sad, but they’ll eat.”
I couldn’t believe that. If someone that close to me died so horribly, I’d never want to see food again. Even now the thought of trying to swallow anything made my throat close in protest.
“What’s something like pizza, but that everyone would think I made?”
“Sushi?”
“Really? Does that go with Caesar salad?”
I gave up and prayed that Frank Marselli would get here soon.