Carolyn G. Hart (37 page)

She reached the sidewalk at the same time. He saw her and smiled appreciatively, his mouth quirking up
in good humor and lessening the predatory look of his misshapen (football?) nose. His admiration was so unstudied that she grinned back. Then he looked past her. His face hardened, hooding his dark brown eyes.

Curious, Annie half-turned and knew her own face toughened, too. America’s sweetheart stood on the sidewalk, pointing at the Tempo.

“What is that vehicle doing here? Move it along. You’re blocking the entrance to the Society.”

From her tone, Corinne Webster might have been addressing the driver of a garbage scow.

The stocky young man ignored her and began walking up the sidewalk.

“Young man, do as I say. Move that car.”

He turned as if aware for the first time that she was speaking to him. “Press, lady.”

“But you can’t come in here.” She waved her bejewelled hand toward the Society building.

“Sure, I can. It’s a city agency, funded by the city, and there’s an open meeting law, lady.” He pivoted and continued briskly up the sidewalk.

“You’ve never come to any of our meetings before.” Corinne hurried up the walk after him, her face pale with anger. “If you’ve come to cause trouble because I spoke to you last week—”

He paused and swung toward her. A muscle twitched in his taut face. “Oh, yeah.” His tone was sarcastic. “Gee, I didn’t recognize you either. If it isn’t Mrs. High-and-Mighty Webster. Sure, you’re the dame who offered me money to get out of town. Yeah, I remember you now.” There was utter contempt in his dark eyes. “Don’t worry, lady, I’m not here on your account. I’m here because the news desk got a tip this was going to be an interesting morning.”

He moved on up the sidewalk, yanked open the heavy front door, and disappeared inside.

Corinne Webster stood frozen, her hands gripping the handle of her dhurrie purse so tightly that her fingers turned a waxy white. She wore a black-and-white linen dress this morning and a heavy, beaten-gold necklace with a shiny opal drop. She stood stiffly for a long moment, then stalked forward. Annie glimpsed her face as she opened the door. When it closed behind her, Annie felt her tight shoulders relax. Ah, Chastain, this sundrenched, idyllic coastal hideaway. What next?

A squeal of tortured metal raked the morning quiet. Miss Dora, dressed this morning in a full-skirted bombazine with puff sleeves, turned up the sidewalk, pulling a child’s rusted red wagon. A black pillbox hat with a jaunty green plume topped her flyaway silver hair. The raspy voice rose above the scrape of one bent tire against the bottom of the wagon.

“Open the door there, girl.”

Obediently, Annie hurried up the walk and pulled open the heavy wooden door and watched in fascination as the gnome-like figure, cane in one hand, maneuvered the wagon. A large hammer rode atop a pile of placards attached to two-foot white stakes, pointed on one end.

Footsteps sounded behind them, and a tall, slender woman reached down to help.

“Good morning, Aunt Dora. It looks like you’re all ready for the tour week.” Then she straightened, smiled at Annie, and held out her hand. “I’m Lucy Haines, a member of the Board. You must be Annie Laurance, our mystery creator.”

Annie took her hand and liked her at once. Her grip was cool and firm, her face serious, her manner formal, but friendly. She wore a gray-and-white striped seersucker
skirt and an unadorned white blouse and looked wonderfully normal in contrast to Corinne and Miss Dora.

The heavy, blonde secretary joined them in the entryway. “I’ll put the wagon in the storeroom, Miss Dora. I think everyone’s here. They’re all in—”

The voice full, throaty, and deep, carried as clearly as a Broadway actress’s delivery to the farthest stall.

“You’ve gone too far, Corinne. I won’t tolerate this.”

Even in the dim entryway with the weak illumination from the wall sconces and the pale squares of sunlight from the deepset windows, the malicious curve to Miss Dora’s smile was unmistakable. “Sybil.”

Annie felt a quick march of goose bumps across the small of her back. Miss Dora’s sandpaper voice oozed simultaneous disgust, pleasure, vindictiveness, and amusement. The secretary peered toward the archway, her eyes wide with distress. The sensible Lucy Haines frowned, and gnawed her lip.

Sybil’s deep, vibrant voice quivered with rage. “It is unspeakable.”

Miss Dora wheezed with laughter, revealing blackened, uneven teeth. “Come on, girls, let’s not miss the show,” and led the way through the bricked archway and down a narrow hall to a wider archway that opened into an equally dim, very large room, which held an ornately carved walnut refectory table. One man unknown to Annie sat at the table, but she recognized Gail Prichard, her sometime customer Roscoe Merrill, and the red-headed Edith Ferrier. No one noticed their arrival. All eyes were riveted on two women.

Corinne stood beside the speaker’s stand at the far end of the table. Her blue eyes glittered like a southern sea on a blistering day. Annie realized with a twist of
shock, however, that Corinne was
enjoying
herself. There was no sense here of a woman beleaguered or defensive. To the contrary, she stood by the table, upright as a goddess on the prow of a Roman ship, and just as arrogant and supercilious.

“Really, Sybil, your attitude is surprising.” Her voice was cool, amused, untroubled. “It’s a matter of contract, you know. All very clear. You can ask Roscoe.”

All eyes, Annie’s included, switched to Sybil, posed dramatically in front of the Flemish tapestry that covered a third of the bricked wall behind her. At her first full view, Annie thought simply, “Wow.” Voluptuous described Ruebens’ nudes and Sybil. And Sybil had the edge. A bitch in heat could not be more frankly sensual. A diamond clip glistened against her midnight black hair. Violet eye shadow emphasized the depth and hunger of equally black eyes. She wore a green jersey dress with a sharply plunging neckline that clung to every generous curve, revealing a cleavage guaranteed to galvanize every male present. She made every other woman in the room look about as attractive as a praying mantis. She turned now and stretched out a hand tipped by talon-sharp, vermilion nails. A diamond large enough to rival the Kohinoor weighted her third finger. A great square emerald glittered in an antique gold setting. Matching emeralds gleamed in a bracelet. “Roscoe, is this true?” The contralto voice vibrated. “Did you have anything to do with this unconscionable exploitation?”

Roscoe Merrill was obviously wishing fervently that he were somewhere else, maybe a far outpost of the Foreign Legion. A fine beading of sweat glistened on his bald head. His expressionless brown eyes avoided both Sybil’s probing gaze and Corinne’s confident stare, peering down instead at the legal pad on the
table. He cleared his throat. “The Museum, of course, felt it imperative to protect its own interests. And, since the paintings have been executed on Museum time and using Museum materials, it is only equitable and reasonable that the Museum should have title to the paintings.”

“I can’t believe that contract.” Sybil stepped closer to the table and bent down to grip his shoulder.

He glanced up, then jerked his eyes away from that enticing cleavage to stare determinedly at the legal pad. A dull red flush spread over his face and bald head.

“It’s disgusting. Not only to steal the poor boy’s work, but to forbid him to take part in an exhibition! To sabotage his career! Roscoe, you ought to be ashamed.” Then she whirled toward Corinne. “And you, you’re a jealous, conniving bitch. Just because you’re a dried-up, dessicated old woman, you resent anyone who’s truly alive. But you needn’t think you’ve won. Just you wait and see!”

For the first time, Corinne’s control wavered and an ugly flash of hatred moved in her eyes, but she retained an icy smile. “The Museum’s position is irreproachable. And now, it’s time for—”

“Mrs. Giacomo, I’m Bobby Frazier, reporter for the
Chastain Courier.”
The stocky young man who had smiled at Annie outside pushed away from the wall, and approached Sybil.

Annie put names together. Miss Dora had said she defiled her name, that she was a Chastain. So, Sybil Chastain Giacomo. What price an Italian count?

“Can you tell me a little more about your disagreement here? Is there a problem at the Prichard Museum?” His pencil poised over his notebook.

Corinne reached out and gripped the speaker’s
stand. “You have no right to come in here and ask questions—this matter is not of public concern.”

The reporter ignored her rising voice and, admiration evident, addressed Sybil. “You’re a director of the Prichard Museum, aren’t you? Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Sybil absorbed his interest automatically, instantly recognized a way to embarrass Corinne, took a deep breath, and let fly. “Why, certainly. Of course I can, Mr. Frazier. I know all about it. Tim Bond—you know his work, of course—is a curator at the Prichard Museum. Actually, he does
everything
. He makes most of the reproductions and cleans old pictures and he paints. Everyone knows he has a
great
future. Corinne snatched him up, because she always wants to own everyone. She told him he could work at the museum and paint all he wanted and he’d have a salary and not have to worry about money at all. But she didn’t tell him the contract he signed made all his paintings belong to the museum—”

“That isn’t true at all.” For the first time, Corinne’s voice was strident. “He read the contract. He understood.”

“You told him the Museum would be happy to loan his paintings out for exhibits, and there was no question of the Museum keeping the paintings here until Corinne found out that Tim and I—” Sybil’s shoulders shifted, and Annie could almost hear the whisper of satin sheets—“are friends. She resents his having friendships. Now, he’s had this wonderful offer from a gallery in New York. They want to show all of his paintings in September, and it could absolutely launch his career—and Corinne won’t give him permission to take his work to New York!”

Frazier wrote rapidly in his notebook, then turned
toward Corinne. “Has the Museum refused Bond permission to show his works?”

“The paintings belong to—” Corinne began angrily.

Merrill intervened smoothly, “Mr. Frazier, this matter is still under consideration by the Museum Board and no final determination has been made. I understand there will be further discussion of Museum policy in regard to loan exhibitions at next month’s meeting, so it would be premature to announce that a decision has been made.”

“Tim Bond’s future is at stake,” Sybil thundered magnificently, “and I for one do not intend to let the matter drop. Most Chastainians will support me.” She paused. Her face was slowly transformed from petulant anger to malignant pleasure. “I’m going to launch a petition drive. I’m going to ask everyone to sign who wants Chastain’s most talented young painter to have a chance to achieve success.”

“When will you start the petition drive, Mrs. Giacomo?” Frazier was egging her on, well aware that his every question further infuriated Corinne.

“Today. Right now.” She reached over Merrill’s shoulder, snatched up the yellow legal pad, and brandished it over her head. “Here. I’ll start it now.” Grabbing a pencil from Frazier’s pocket, she scrawled in block letters: PETITION TO FREE TIM BOND’S PAINTINGS. With a triumphant glance at Corinne, she flung the pad down on the table in front of Merrill and handed him the pencil.

Not a muscle moved in Merrill’s heavy face. He was as expressionless as a poker player who’d made his last draw. He read Sybil’s scrawl, then said temperately, “Obviously, both Lucy and I as members of the Board of the Prichard Museum which would, I presume, be
the recipient of the completed petition, are precluded from signing this.”

Sybil’s sultry eyes traveled slowly from the shiny top of his head to a visible portion of his glistening black leather shoes. Then she drawled, “You never did have any balls, Roscoe.” Without waiting for an answer, she shoved the pad down the table toward Edith Ferrier.

Corinne moved like a flash, darting past Sybil to snatch up the pad.

Sybil lunged toward her, grabbing one end.

A sharp crack resounded through the room, and, for an instant, no one moved.

Annie absorbed the tableau: Miss Dora with her ebony cane still upraised, ready to pound the table again; Lucy Haines, lips parted, brows drawn in a frown; Gail Prichard, her hands tightly clasped, watching her aunt in horrified fascination; Corinne Prichard Webster, the bones of her face sharpened by anger, her mouth a thin, taut line; Sybil Chastain Giacomo, triumphant, her tousled black hair an ebony frame for her flushed face; Bobby Frazier grinning, reveling in Corinne’s discomfiture; Roscoe Merrill, his shoulders bunched, rigidly controlling his anger; Edith Ferrier wary, her green eyes flicking from face to face; and the sharp-visaged man, whom she hadn’t met, beating an impatient tattoo with the fingers of one hand.

Miss Dora broke up the moment, circling the table like a dragonfly, then raising the cane again to bring it down with a decisive whack against the legal pad, still held on either end by Corinne and Sybil. The blow tore the pad from their hands, and it fell to the floor.

“Sybil, sit down. There. By Edith. Corinne, you get yourself up to the table and start this meeting.” She swung toward Annie and Lucy. “And you two. Take
your places over there.” Everyone did just as instructed.

Corinne reached the lectern and began to riffle through a thin sheaf of papers. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. The room pulsed with hostility.

Lucy Haines’s low, pleasant voice was in odd counterpoint to the seething atmosphere. “Corinne, we should introduce our guests.”

Corinne looked at her blankly.

“Mr. Frazier and Miss Laurance.”

Corinne’s eyes narrowed, but, after an instant’s pause, she brusquely presented them to the Board. “And our members: Gail Prichard, Roscoe Merrill, Sybil Giacomo, Edith Ferrier, Dr. John Sanford, Dora Brevard, and Lucy Haines.”

Dr. Sanford. Annie looked at him with interest. The corner of his ascetic mouth turned down in disdain. He had floppy gray-streaked dark hair that curled untidily over his ears, a hawk nose, and impersonal eyes. He sat at the end of the table beside Edith Ferrier, but he ignored her. Edith watched Corinne somberly, and her dour expression contrasted sharply with her cheerful, almost girlish dress, a cyclamen-pink floral print.