Better Homes and Corpses (8 page)

“What do you want us to do? Find out if anything is missing or put a dollar amount on the estate?” I was still miffed at being third on the suspect list.

“Both, I guess.” He knelt next to me, reeking of cinnamon breath mints. “I’d also like to hear your impression of the family dynamics. Any insight you might have. I did some digging and saw your father was on the job in Detroit.”

“I’m not a snoop.”

“I’m not asking you to snoop, just to keep your eyes and ears open.” He glanced at the open door leading to the study and pointed to a piece of paper on the floor that had fallen from my notepad. “Looks like you’re not averse to it either.” He winked conspiratorially. “Have a nice day, ladies.” He walked out of the room and the front door clicked closed.

“What do you think? Is he a good cop or a bad cop?” Elle chewed on the stem of her vintage rhinestone cat-eye glasses.

“The verdict’s still out.” I had called Elle the night before and told her about the broken video camera and sent her the photos from my cell phone of the tall clock from Tara’s shop and the bookcase hidden under the sheet in the attic. Elle suspected the clock was indeed a Dominy because of the carved crest of waves on the clock’s bonnet
—
Elle’s word—and the saying on the clock face:
Death don’t retreat to improve each beat.
She’d also said it could be a good fake and went on to lecture me about the Dominy family. Starting in 1760, three generations of Dominys worked as artisans and woodworkers, even building the windmill in East Hampton and two more in the surrounding area. They also were credited with adding a copper top to the Montauk Point Lighthouse. The Dominy workshop on Main Street was later dismantled and could now be seen at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware.

If the clock was a Dominy, I was correct in saying the clock had no business in Tara’s shop. “Is the Spenser family portrait painted by Salvatore over the fireplace worth anything?”

“It’s not listed, so I assume it has nothing but sentimental value, but the fireplace mantel is worth about a hundred grand. It’s even signed.” Elle reverted to her know-it-all Sotheby’s voice. “Remember, the value of an object signed is worth ten times more than unsigned.”

It was strange to gaze at Cole’s face knowing he hadn’t posed for the painting; the artist had used his son because Cole had left home. Caroline Spenser created the perfect family—if only on canvas.

“After we finish this room, I’m going to the attic to videotape everything, including the bookcase.” Elle dropped to her knees and looked under a small chest next to the sofa and examined its dovetail joints.

“What’s the highest price a piece of American furniture ever went for?”

“I know of an early eighteenth-century Newport chest that went for eight million. And I saw a Goddard and Townsend secretary desk for sale online for fifteen million.”

“Wow! Maybe one day we’ll find something like that at a garage sale.”

“You never know. Can you bring me that bowl in the display box on top of the table next to you?”

I walked to the table and lifted a glass-and-wood box containing a display item—a gold-paneled drinking bowl with two thumb grips fashioned into the shape of ladies’ heads. I carefully opened the case and removed the bowl, ready to hand it to Elle.

“New York goldsmith Jesse Kip,” a male voice said from behind.

The sound in my ears amplified and I jerked forward. The cup slipped from my hands. Adam caught it in midair.

“Kip was revered for his casting and engraving. This cup is the holy grail of Early American precious metalwork. Caroline couldn’t believe her luck to come across such a beauty, especially with the monogrammed
S
. She passed it off as another Spenser/Seacliff heirloom.”

I examined the elaborate fleur-de-lis design displayed on each of the six panels.

“And to think she only paid one hundred fifty thousand for it,” he said.

“If Mrs. Spenser was killed with robbery in mind, then this room would have been pay dirt,” Elle said. “We haven’t met. I’m Elle Warner.” She walked over to Adam and extended her hand.

He said, “Adam Prescott. A pleasure. And in answer to your question, Caroline believed the fewer cooks stirring
the pot the better. When the house cleaners came, someone would follow them from room to room. She was very protective of her treasures, and that was one of the reasons why only the Arnolds were allowed to live in. Plus most of the rooms in the house are never used. She and I cleaned the rarest items ourselves, and we do have the best security system on the market.” Adam wore a black leather jacket, not well-worn like Cole’s; this one would be featured in the window of Ralph Lauren in East Hampton. The coat’s collar was up. All he needed were aviation goggles and a scarf and he could go off to fight the Red Baron. He turned to me and said, “Have you lost some weight?”

“I borrowed some clothes—got caught in the rain.”

“You look like you’re in high school.”

“Uhm, thanks, I guess.”

Adam walked over to Elle with the drinking cup. “Elle, I want you to know my offer still stands. If you need help, I’m free. I know Jillian is mentally indisposed, and Cole—well, he’s Cole.” It appeared that Adam didn’t know anything about Jillian’s morning. He glanced at the cluster of rhinestone pins on the lapel of Elle’s blazer. “Love your collection.”

“Oh, these little things? I just threw them together.”

Liar. I knew she wouldn’t lay her head on her pillow until she’d picked out her outfit for the next day, along with the coordinating jewelry and handbag.

“I’m heading to the Golden Apple for a coffee. Elle, would you like to come along?”

“Wish I could. We’re a little behind. Can I take a rain check?”

“Can I bring you something?”

“Nothing, but thanks.”

I felt like the invisible woman. “Sure. A macadamia-nut
banana yogurt muffin and a nuttichino would be great.” Ten dollars for a muffin and latte wouldn’t break him, like it would me.

Later, I said, “Wonder why Adam hangs around the estate, not the city. Perhaps Detective Shoner gave him the same
Don’t leave town
directive. You’re not attracted to him are you, Miss Elle?”

“He is gorg. He’d make a wonderful one-night stand. And that dark, moody Heathcliff dude wouldn’t be too bad either.”

Cole? Damn, Elle saw it too.

TEN

We spent the next hour coordinating the insurance photos with the treasures in the room. Nothing overt appeared missing. When Elle turned on the video camera, I stepped out the front door to check the weather—Adam hadn’t returned and I was jonesin’ for some caffeine.

The fickle day had returned to its original state. The sun shone in a perfect sky filled with flossy clouds; the only remnants from the storm were a multitude of twigs that littered the drive. An East Hampton police car was in its usual position with no occupant inside. I was about to step off the porch when a man darted from the woods and jogged toward me. My first instinct was to run inside, but he didn’t look like a killer. (Then again, neither had Ted Bundy or the myriad of other confessed psychopaths, Charles Manson excluded.) He wore the biggest smile I’d ever seen that didn’t belong to a child.

“You must be Meg. My father just told me about you.” He reached out his hand.

“You must be Vancent.” His hair was a sandy brown, on the longish side, but not as long as Salvatore’s.

“Call me Van. You can drop the ‘cent.’ My mother named me after sixty hours of hard labor.” He clasped my hand and, instead of shaking it, brought it to his lips. “It’s a pleasure. I’m here to help Mr. Arnold clean up from the storm.”

“Salvatore said you help out. Do you live around here?”

“Right now I’m staying with my father. Taking time out to refocus.”

“Focus on what?”

He followed me inside the house. “Okay. I’ll be honest. I’m a surfer bum, as my mother calls me. She’s afraid I’ll turn into a carbon copy of my father and live out some kind of Andy Warhol–like existence. In fact, Dad did hang out with Warhol at his compound in Montauk,
back in the day
. The real reason my mother’s pissed is ’cause I dropped out of med school. Enough about me. How about you? Jillian told me you two used to be roommates.”

The front door opened and Adam walked in, his arms loaded with goodies.

“Here. Let me help you with that,” Van said. “I was giving Meg a capsulation of my dull life story. The conservatory, old buddy?”

“Hey, watch the ‘old’ reference. You’re only a few years younger than me.”

“Meg, come back and join us.” Van smiled.

“I’ll ask Elle.”

“Do you want to take this with you?” Van took a foamy concoction from Adam’s outstretched hand and waved it under my nose.

“She can’t bring that in there. She might spill it on the seventeenth-century rug. Caroline would never have allowed it,” Adam said.

Adam and Van walked to the right of the staircase, taking my coffee with them. They passed the same spot where I’d found Jillian and Caroline Spenser the morning of the murder. If I had to find the conservatory, I’d make damn sure not to go in that direction.

Elle was standing at a cabinet holding a vase with glistening silvery-blue leaves and vines. “Louis Comfort Tiffany. Caroline Spenser paid forty thousand dollars for it.”

“Wow. Exquisite.”

She replaced it in the cabinet and reached for another, swaddling it in her hands like a preemie from an incubator. This vase resembled a delicate wineglass—the round base sprouted a thin green stem that reached up to display sparkling blooms of amber and teal. Elle tipped the vase over to show me the paper label with Louis Comfort Tiffany’s initials. “Do you know that for all his accolades, there was a short period of time when Tiffany glass fell out of favor? It wasn’t unusual to see Tiffany glass thrown in trash bins along Park Avenue.”

“I’ll remember that the next time I go garbage pickin’. Can I hold it?” I cupped the base in my hands. I could swear my fingers warmed from the fire caught in the glass. When I placed it back on the bottom shelf, there was a rectangular impression etched in dust from where an object once stood. All the vases in the cabinet had circular bases. “Hey, do you think something’s missing?” I pointed.

“Let me check the list.” Elle flipped through the insurance files and cross-referenced the items in the photos to the items in the case. “There’s one thing that doesn’t match up—a marquetry fruitwood box supposedly filled with an assortment of nineteenth-century coins. The total value at the time of their appraisal was two thousand dollars. Not a lot compared to the other items in the room.”

“Hmm. We’ve been invited to the
conservatory
for coffee. Maybe we should go so we can get closer to the pulse of the house.”

“Professor Plum with the wrench in the conservatory.”

“Adam seems more like a
Colonel Mustard with a revolver in the billiard room
kind of guy.”

The back porch, or conservatory, as Adam called it, was a small rainforest with floor-to-ceiling windows filled with tropical plants, moist air, and exotic birds in cages. Mr. Arnold was outside cleaning up from the storm. Giant fern fronds tickled my neck as I sipped something delicious, not what I’d ordered, topped with crème fraîche. Elle had bowed out, opting to take the video camera to the attic to capture the bookcase I’d found behind the screen.

I was wrong about Adam. Now he was Mrs. Peacock in a wide fan-backed wicker chair.

“It’s time for Jillian to leave Seacliff,” Adam said to Van.

Van’s sneakered feet were propped on top of a rattan ottoman. “This is the only home she’s ever known. She’d be lost anywhere else. Hell, she’s such a homebody, she doesn’t even own a cell phone.”

“I think Dr. Greene may be too old-fashioned to treat her.”

“He seems to have a good understanding of PTSD. He said temporary memory loss is quite common after what happened to her.”

I lapped at the crème fraîche. Mr. Arnold pantomimed through the window for Van to come help. I was pretty sure Van saw him, but he pretended not to.

“Did someone forget to invite me to the party?” Cole strolled in, hands on his hips, looking straight at me.

Darn
.

“Hi, Cole. How’ve you been?” Van had a wide-mouthed smile.

“It’s been a while.” Cole matched his smile. Cole walked over and gave Van a macho slap on the back and a quick embrace, ignoring Adam.

“Yeah, only seventeen years.” Van squeezed back.

Cole turned to me. “Can I talk to you—in private?”

“Sure.” I sprung up, trying to cover for the emotional moment. My lower extremities felt like they’d been shot with Novocain—maybe I
had
been loafing too long.

Cole waited at the doorway of the same room he’d been in earlier with Detective Shoner. The paneling in the room was similar to the library’s, but the lack of books made it feel colder. On either side of the mantel was a bookcase carved with the same scrollwork I’d admired in the library. I counted fifteen trophies affixed with small sailboats.

“Sorry to interrupt your little coffee break, but you really should get back to work. The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can find if something was stolen and solve the motive for my mother’s death.”

In the gilt mirror over the fireplace, a thick white mustache covered my upper lip. I licked it away and turned to Cole. “Detective Shoner told me nothing appeared to be missing when they searched the house.”

Cole pointed to the corner of his mouth with a smile.
Darn. Must’ve missed a spot.
I took my sleeve and wiped it away.

“There has to be something missing or out of place.”

“Only one thing doesn’t match up so far—a box of coins.” I tried to gauge his reaction
.
“Compared to the other items in the house, they don’t seem worth killing for.”

Cole flinched at the word “killing.”

“Elle said they were appraised at two thousand dollars seven years ago.”

“I remember that box. My father kept it on his desk
when we were small. The coins were passed down to my father from his grandfather, but like you said, I never got the impression they had any value—only sentimental. Not much gold, mostly early pennies and silver dollars. Would someone kill my mother for a box of old coins?”

I didn’t have an answer. My cop father would say people have killed for much less. In this case, I couldn’t imagine Caroline Spenser having been murdered over a box of coins. I went to touch Cole’s arm, but he moved away and strode out of the room.

I wanted to ask Cole if his mother had any enemies. Caroline Spenser had a reputation of being a ruthless woman. She knew what she wanted and usually got it. I wished I had the guts to ask Cole about the fight that caused his exile.