Ashes to Ashes (10 page)

“It’s a creepy old place. If it were mine I’d exorcise it by putting in modern furniture and accessories. I’d hire a jazz ensemble to play on the minstrel’s gallery and invite lots of people to troop in and out.”

“The state is planning to make it a youth hostel or a scout camp. That should do for the troops, anyway.”

“Assuming the state gets it.”

“Didn’t James will the estate and the remaining furnishings to Ohio?” “He did, but only if no relatives are found by the first of January. His property taxes kept getting higher, and he kept getting angrier, until finally he came up with that scheme, hoping to keep the state from taking it all. Except your and Campbell’s and the servants’ salaries, of course— those are covered in any event.”

And your no doubt tidy fee, Rebecca added silently. “James didn’t know whether he had relatives?”

“John Forbes had an elder sister, Rachel, but she went her own way well before the turn of the century. James made up his mind about the will just a few days before he died, unfortunately. But I’m working on it. Odd to think that’s one of the last duties I’ll be doing for Dun Iain, finding someone to give it to.”

“Mmm, the unexpected inheritance, just like in a movie.”

“Life follows art,” Eric said. “Except in life there’s more paperwork.” The car stopped at the end of the driveway. In the field across the road a pair of eyes, caught by the headlights, glittered and vanished.

“Do you need me to get out and close the gates?” Rebecca asked.

Eric turned onto the road. “The gates haven’t been closed for years.”

So much for Rebecca’s image of Michael considerately opening them for her. “I thought James wanted to keep people out.”

“John did. By the time James took over no one was particularly interested in coming out here anyway. Except for teenagers looking for a place to party, and they climb in over the fence. They’re harmless enough; they stay away from the house. Dun Iain’s outside the city limits of Putnam, in the sheriff’s jurisdiction, and he keeps a close eye on the area.” The headlights swept a stretch of brick wall that was partially collapsed, overgrown with underbrush between whose limbs peeked bits of spray-painted graffiti. “I saw a car parked over there today. Probably friends of Steve’s come to keep him company while he doesn’t work.”

“Yes, I think I saw one of them.”

Eric nodded. “Subtlety is not Steve’s strong suit, I’m afraid.”

“The house is safe enough,” Rebecca continued. “Craigievar may have been an example of seventeenth century conspicuous consumption, but it was still built for defense. Scotland had a few wars yet to go.”

“Who? Oh, the castle in Scotland that John copied.”

Rebecca considered Eric’s profile, illuminated by the faint lights of the dashboard, and reminded herself that most people wouldn’t even be aware that Dun Iain was a copy, let alone what it was a copy of. So the man wasn’t an historian. Historians didn’t wear suits that expensive.

She had seen that profile on a Roman coin. Maybe his nose was a bit prominent, like an eagle’s beak. But then, “Adler” meant “eagle” in German; that nose was the sort of characteristic that could become a family name. Like her grandfather’s red hair, appropriate for a Scot named Reid.

Eric realized she was looking at him, caught her smile, cradled it a moment in one of his own, and returned it. Oh my, she thought, clearing her mental throat. He is good at the game of the sexes, isn’t he?

A few minutes later the car passed under the interstate and entered Putnam. There was the Burger King. Several doors down was a shabby pizza place lit with neon beer advertisements. Despite the cold, a dozen or so teenagers of indeterminate sex lounged amid the cars in the parking lot, pinpoint lights of cigarettes hovering like fireflies among them. Rebecca, gliding by in her cocoon of warmth and comfort, looked at them only casually. Then she looked again. That insectlike figure had to be Steve Pruitt, nursing a bottle of something that, she bet, wasn’t a soft drink.

Suddenly red and blue lights flashed simultaneously from a side street and from the main road. A siren wailed and then died on a piercingly flat note. Some of the dark figures in the parking lot jumped and scattered; others stood their ground with nonchalant attitudes.

Eric slowed and edged toward the curb, evading the approaching police car. “This place has a reputation for selling booze to under-age kids.”

“Wasn’t that Steve over there?” Rebecca asked.

“Probably. He’s only nineteen; he’s a disaster area.”

“What about… ” Rebecca cut herself off. Maybe she’d smelled marijuana on the young man, maybe she hadn’t.

“Illegal drugs? Putnam kids still get their kicks from beer. So far.”

The lights of the police cars converged on the mass of shouting, gesticulating figures in the parking lot. Faces whirled by, at one moment painted harshly by the glare, at the next swallowed by the rim of darkness. Eric eased back into the traffic lane and accelerated.

“You’re not going to rush over there and start handing out business cards?” Rebecca inquired sweetly.

“Thanks,” replied Eric, with a quick sarcastic glance.

One dim form broke loose from the tangle of bodies. It sprinted across the sidewalk and into the street. “Watch out!” shouted someone, and another voice cried, “Hey you! Come back here!”

Rebecca gasped. Her foot made futile pushing motions at a nonexistent brake pedal. Eric spat a four-letter word that clashed with his suit and tie. His foot succeeded where hers had failed. The car skidded, fishtailed and stopped. The fleeing figure spun through the headlights, eyes and mouth gaping; a fist pounded the hood of the car and then vanished. The face was branded on Rebecca’s retina— eyes and mouth smeared with makeup, delicate features almost erased by the glare of light. A girl.

“You all right?” asked one of the policemen, running up to the car.

“Yeah,” snapped Eric, his voice, if not his body, showing evidence of whiplash. He turned to Rebecca. “Are you?”

Her hand was pressed over her mouth as if she were keeping her tonsils from leaping out in a scream. Surely the lines of the seat belt would be engraved on her body. She blinked and managed to say. “I’m fine, thank you. Only a dent in my composure.”

She’d had to start kidding him just then. If he’d had slower reflexes he’d have hit that— that child while he was looking at her. She didn’t know him well enough to be kidding him like that anyway.

“Better go on,” advised the officer. “Traffic’s backing up.”

With infinite care Eric straightened up the car and crept off down the road. “You’re sure you’re all right? I’m sorry, I… ”

“Good Lord,” she said. “I distracted you. I’m the one who’s sorry.” She could see his frown in the barred light of the streetlamps, the black arch of his brows furrowed. The car accelerated beyond a turtle’s pace. “At least let me apologize for swearing like that.”

“You’re entitled,” Rebecca told him. “If I’d had a voice just then we would’ve had a duet.”

He shook his head and allowed his face to smooth. In silence they passed through the old downtown district, storefronts divided among boutiques, feed stores, and boarded-up windows, skirted a residential area, and emerged on another highway. The topmost of a tier of signs before a strip shopping center proclaimed in fancy script letters, “Gaetano’s”.

“Here we are.” Eric pulled into a parking place and stopped. Rebecca, used to letting herself in and out of a car, hesitated a moment and was rewarded by Eric’s handing her out with the self-mocking gallantry of a Regency beau. She returned the pressure of his hand before releasing it.

The interior of the restaurant was all subdued lighting, tasteful pastels, and the occasional impressionist print. The maitre d’ recognized Eric and bowed them into a banquette. This is living, Rebecca said to herself. She opened the menu and tried not to gulp at the prices. It might be a shopping center on the outside, but inside it was strictly uptown.

“May I?” Eric asked. Rebecca murmured something polite, too embarrassed to admit she didn’t know what half the things on the menu were. Tuesday nights with Ray and his everlasting olive pizzas were beginning to look pretty thin indeed.

Eric turned to the hovering waiter.
Gnocchi con pomodoro e rosmarino, focaccia
, salad, veal
alla pizzaiola
, something hideously expensive from the wine list. Rebecca’s composure crumpled even further. She and Ray would treat themselves to glasses of what Dover’s Pizza Paradise optimistically called wine, but a whole bottle? And she was sure her palate wouldn’t appreciate anything so exclusive. “Are you trying to get me drunk?” she whispered.

“Now why would I want to do that?” Eric replied with a smile. Oh Grandmother, she thought, what lovely teeth you have.

He sat close enough to her she could sense his presence, far enough away to preserve her personal space. She could just sense the spicy aroma of his after-shave, probably only available at upscale department stores.

His hands smoothed the intricate folds of the napkin on the table. For someone exuding wealth and sophistication his hands were those of a laborer, blunt, sturdy, oddly prosaic. But on one finger he wore a thick gold ring, set with a diamond suitably discreet but still twice as large as her chip of an engagement stone, and monogrammed “EFA”. “F?” she asked.

He looked up, startled. “What?”

“The ‘F’ on your ring. What’s your middle name?”

“Oh. Frederick. Nicely Germanic. Fits with the Eric and the Adler.”

“It’s nice to meet someone who isn’t of Scottish ancestry.”

“It takes all kinds.”

The wine came, was approved, and poured into her glass in a sparkling crimson stream. Eric waited, glass poised. She lifted hers and clinked it against his. “To Dun Iain,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied. “By all means.”

By the time the antipasto arrived they were well into polite cross-examination. Rebecca had three older brothers, Eric was an only child raised by his grandmother. Rebecca’s undergraduate and master’s degrees were from the University of Missouri, Eric had attended law school at the University of California at Los Angeles, his hometown. Like her, he’d worked his way through college, his grandmother’s Social Security checks barely covering their rent. Now she understood why he’d never had his teeth fixed— as a child too poor to afford braces, as an adult too vain to wear them.

Rebecca envied his state as an only child, and envied even more his current financial security. But then, unlike her, he’d chosen a profession that offered financial security. She toyed for a moment with daydreams of fiscal hedonism, clothes, cars, and wine lists.

Judging by the current events that appeared in the background of his biography, Eric was about thirty-five. Rebecca wondered if there was a divorce in his past, and whether his frank admiration for the feminine had contributed to it. She contented herself with the innocuous, “And what brought you from California to Ohio?”

“I was offered a position with the Birkenhead, Birkenhead and Dean, in Columbus, just about the time my grandmother died. There was no reason to stay in L.A., and I’d never been in this part of the country.”

“You were handed the Dun Iain account, I suppose, as the older members of the firm were getting too dignified to drive up here.”

“Spot on,” said Eric, “as your Scottish friend would say.”

“He’s not necessarily my friend. He came with the job.”

“Want to file a complaint with OSHA, the occupational hazard people?”

Rebecca laughed. The waiter whisked away empty dishes and deposited full ones. To Rebecca’s slightly glazed eyes each plate was haloed with oil and cheese. She wondered if Italian food could be considered a sacrament.

“Did you tell Michael about wanting to put a jazz ensemble on the piper’s gallery?” she asked. “I’ll bet he threw a rampant lion of Scotland gold and crimson fit.”

“Not exactly. He is pretty touchy, though. Can’t say as I blame him. He knows I’m supposed to be checking up on him.” Eric’s jaw tightened; in his body language, Rebecca told herself, that signaled suppression of stress. “I also made the mistake of telling him you were coming. And he didn’t like that at all. Sorry.”

“I hate to think what kind of reception I’d have gotten if he hadn’t been expecting me.”

Eric twirled a strand of linguini around his fork and contemplated it a moment. “Actually, though, there’s more than that… .”

“Yes?” Rebecca urged.

“Campbell’s fully aware that he’s a scholar and I’m not. I think he’s been— well, not to put too fine a point on it, overestimating the worth of some of those old things. And putting some things down as valuable that aren’t at all. I can’t help but wonder if he’s doctoring the books, in other words, trying to get a little extra for himself after the dust of the insurance and shipping costs settles. I hate to accuse him of… ” He stared glumly at the tangled strand of pasta, as if it were a noose dangling at Michael’s neck.

“Skimming the cream?” Rebecca suggested.

“I beg your pardon?”

Rebecca discovered that her wineglass was empty. She regarded it sadly. “Just something he said. Embezzlement is the word, isn’t it? I must admit he doesn’t seem the sort.” The red drop remaining at the bottom of the glass shone like crystal, but she saw nothing in it. Michael had a distinct secretive streak, yes. But if he had criminal secrets, surely he’d be a lot more poker-faced, less charming and less obnoxious both.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Eric went on. “If I had more technical knowledge I’d probably find my suspicions are all wrong. I’m sure he’s quite honest, and simply resents your and my breathing down his neck.”

“I’ll be keeping an eye on him. He’s already tried to get a few things by me. Jokingly, you understand; I figured he was testing my knowledge just to flatter his ego. But you never can tell.”

“Thank you,” said Eric. “I really appreciate your help.” He patted her hand where it rested on the table. She could feel the print of his fingers glowing on her skin even after he picked up his fork again.

Was that the deal, then? A fancy dinner for her services as— well, as a spy? But that wasn’t all he wanted. Every feminine antenna she had was quiveringly alert, responding to the nuances in his voice, his face, his body.