Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_01 (15 page)

“It’s a rather striking age difference.” I kept my voice neutral.

But Roger took it as criticism. He pulled his chair closer to mine and said earnestly, “It’s not the way you think it was. People just assume Dad’s a cradle snatcher. I know for a fact—Lyle told me—that Dad was impressed with her, but that would have been the end of it. Except for Miranda herself! Lyle said she fell for Dad like a ton of bricks. He didn’t go after Miranda at all. It was Miranda who went after him. But if you know anything about her past … Her mom died when she was just a little girl—younger than I was when my mother died and that’s tough—and Miranda’s dad raised her. I guess he must have been a great father. Poor kid, she lost him, too. Last year. Anyway, when Miranda met Dad, it was like somebody tossed Stardust in her eyes. She was obsessed with him. And, hell, how could any man turn her down? I wish I had just a little of Dad’s magic. Whatever it is.”

I could have told him. I met Chase when I was her age and Chase was young and vibrant with the unmistakable, seductive aura of a winner. But it wouldn’t have made Roger feel any better.

“You don’t seem to mind.”

“Mind? Mind what?”

“Having such a young stepmother.” I reached over to drop the soda bottle in a wastebasket.

He gave me an endearing smile. “Henrie O, I like Miranda—and I want Dad to be happy.” His eyes darkened. “The only problem Dad and I have is that we don’t agree on anything about how he runs his papers. God, he could do so much
good
. But we all know they belong to him. Not me.”

He seemed oblivious to the obvious next step. “They will be yours someday, won’t they?”

“Oh, yeah, but Dad’s in great shape. He’s—” His eyes narrowed. “Oh, now, wait a minute. You think I’d poison my own dad, shoot him down so I could control the editorial policies of his newspapers? No way. I’m not into patricide. Not for any damn reason.”

I left him looking after me with an expression of hurt. I know the conclusion I was supposed to draw: This good fellow, this right-thinking agreeable son, was too open, too disarming, too earnest to be considered a suspect.

Maybe. Maybe not.

I knocked on the French door.

No answer.

I knocked twice more, then turned the handle.

The drawers to the dresser were yanked open. Negligees and blouses, silk slips, panties and bras poked over the edges of the drawers, were strewn atop the puffy bedspread. Two open suitcases were propped against the pillows. The Prescotts’ decorator
would have cringed at hearing the elegant piece of furniture described as a dresser. It was actually an English Colonial commode of lemonwood and ebony. It glistened in the light of the crystal lamp.

Miranda swung about to face me. Her heart-shaped face was ashen. She looked like a bereft child.

I had come into the room in no mood to console, ready to snap a terse “Grow up.”

But this was a personality that was so fragile, so near dissolution that instead I asked, “What are you doing, Miranda?” in a mild, soft voice.

“I want to go home.” The words were tiny breaths. Blindly she grabbed a handful of rainbow-hued lingerie from the top drawer.

“Where is that?” I stepped quietly closer.

Her head swiveled and anguished eyes focused on me. “Chase hired you?”

“Yes.”

“You aren’t lovers?” Her mouth quivered.

“No.” Now I understood her shock when I’d first arrived. She’d been convinced her husband was inviting a lover to the island. I must have come as quite a surprise. But now her distress was dreadful. It was akin to seeing a kitten mauled by dogs.

“I thought … I thought … but the folder you had, it was all business.”

Now I knew who had looked in my purse, rifled through the dossiers.

“Yes, all business.”

Some of the pain seeped out of her face. “You don’t lie, do you?” It was the trusting voice of a child, high and thin.

What a sad, guileless question. But, for now,
there was only one answer to give, no matter how false. “No.”

“Tell me—Tell me why Chase doesn’t come to me. Why has he shut me out? Why has he been so distant, as if he didn’t love me anymore? Why has everything been so wrong? It has been wrong. For weeks now. He isn’t himself. He’s … His eyes are wild. Wild!”

I crossed the room and led her to the wicker chairs near the windows. She came obediently and sat down, still holding a lavender camisole tightly in her hands.

“Sometimes,” I began gently, “we have to remember that people—even people very close to us—act in strange ways because of difficulties they’re facing. The way they act may not have a single thing to do with us. Now, you admire Chase—love Chase—because he’s strong. Isn’t that right?”

Her eyes clung to mine. Her hands gripped the lovely silk camisole as if it were a lifeline.

“Look at it this way, Miranda. Chase has been very kind to you, very gentle. Am I right?” I reached out, loosened those talon-tight fingers, pulled the camisole away, shook it out.

“Oh yes, yes. Always.” Her hands trembled. She clasped them tightly together.

“How gentle would it be to tell you that someone wanted to kill him?” I folded the camisole, laid it on the bed.

She winced as if I’d struck her. “Do you mean … It isn’t because he thinks … thinks …”

“That you tried to poison him? Shot at him? Of
course not. Now let me help you put these things away. First I’ll bring you a cool cloth …” As I talked I walked briskly into her bath, found a clean washcloth, and dampened it.

When I handed it to her, she accepted it with a shy smile. “You’re right. I know you are. I’ve been so selfish! Just thinking of myself and not about Chase at all and how terribly upset he must be. Oh, how awful to realize that behind a face you know there is so much hatred.” She pressed the cloth against her face for a long moment, then jumped up, suddenly bright and vivacious. It was disconcerting to see her mood change so abruptly. “Quick, we’ll put everything back. I don’t know what I was thinking of. How could I have been so stupid? But, you see, I care so much,” she said nakedly. “I can’t live without him.”

“Don’t say that,” I said sharply. If ever age teaches any truth, it is that we must accept life as it happens, no matter what the pain, no matter what the loss. And loss always comes. Loss is the price of love. “We don’t make those decisions, Miranda.”

It took only a few minutes to restore the handsome room, to put away the scattered lingerie, to return the expensive luggage to the back of a huge walk-in closet. As we worked, Miranda talked, her voice as high and light as the chatter of starlings: how wonderful Chase was, how handsome, how strong, how fascinating, how exciting….

Roger’s observation had indeed hit the mark. Miranda was obsessed with her much older husband. Despite her youth and her delicate, childlike beauty, there was a powerful sense of hunger, avidity, over-whelming
determination. Was she so obsessed that if she felt him slipping away, she would rather see him dead than lose him? She had cried that she couldn’t live without him. Did she mean instead that she would not permit him to live without her?

As for Chase, no matter how delightful at first—the possession of that no doubt exquisitely youthful and lovely and passionately responsive body—wouldn’t her constant outpouring of adoration become oppressive? Had he tired of Miranda?

As we walked out of their wing, into the main hall, she impulsively stood on tiptoe and soft lips brushed my cheek. The scent of Giorgio tickled my nose. “Thank you. You’re so kind. I feel so much better. I believe I’ll go out to the gardens now, cut some roses. Chase loves red roses.”

I watched her walk down the hall, so young, so graceful, so lovely.

And so deadly?

I don’t have an emotional response to kitchens, but even a noncook like myself could admire Rosalia’s immaculate domain, with its sparkling tile work surfaces, white-ash cabinets, and a redbrick floor, and take delight in the wonderful aromas. A hint of cayenne seeped from the bubbling stewpot and the sharp smell of fresh yeast from the flour mixture she was kneading on a marble cutting board pervaded the orderly room.

The housekeeper paused, her hands clutching the dough, and watched me with frightened eyes.

Was it I who frightened her, or was she terrified
because someone had made an attempt on her employer’s life?

I took a low-key approach. “Rosalia, I’d like to visit with you for a little while, if it’s convenient.”

“With me? But I was here in my kitchen. I know nothing.” Shrillness sharpened her voice. She dropped the dough and wiped her hands on her apron. She was as immaculate as her kitchen. Her white uniform was fresh and starched, and her white leather shoes glistened with polish. Her black hair was tucked in a tidy coronet braid. She wore no makeup on her smooth ivory skin. I knew that she was forty-seven, that she had married Enrique when she was nineteen, that they had no children. Both she and Enrique were born in Havana and came to the United States as teenagers after the Cuban missile crisis, their families settling in Miami. Enrique had worked at various marinas, eventually becoming the all-purpose handyman for a wealthy yacht owner. Two years later Chase purchased the yacht, and Enrique had come with the boat. On longer trips Rosalia had accompanied them as cook. Chase was so pleased with their work, he had hired both to serve his household, wherever it might be. So, for almost three decades, Enrique and Rosalia accompanied Chase and his family from home to home, including, finally, Prescott Island.

There should be a wealth of knowledge here if I were skilled enough to mine it.

“Rosalia, tell me something of your duties as housekeeper.”

She wiped her hands again, but some of the tightness eased from her thin shoulders. I listened patiently
as she softly described her daily and weekly duties, which were complex indeed, involving the ordering of food, creation of menus, and overseeing of cleaning at six residences. “And Enrique, he is in charge of all else—the cars, you know, and the boat, and the machines. Whatever must work, he makes sure that it does so. And if the boat must be caulked or the roof repaired, why, Enrique tells Mr. Prescott and, quick, quick, it is done.”

Repairs, corrections, events—whatever—do seem to march at a brisk pace for the very rich.

“You and Enrique have worked hard for Mr. Prescott for many years. I know you’ve learned a lot about Mr. Prescott and his family over that time. What kind of man is he?”

She reached down, began to work the dough again. “It is not for me to say.” There was great dignity in her voice.

“Rosalia, they say no man is a hero to his valet. I need to know what kind of man Chase Prescott is to his housekeeper. Don’t you see, if I can have a true picture of him, I can better see who might be angry or hurt or greedy or cruel enough to try to kill him?”

“A true picture?” She shook her head and her hands moved with increasing sureness, kneading, plumping, smoothing. “I tell you, lady, you are looking for simple answers where there are none. So what do I say?” She did not look at me as she settled the mound of dough and covered it with a damp cloth. “Mr. Prescott, he was always a nice man to Mrs. Elizabeth, his first wife. Yes, I say this to you. A very nice man.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “But I know that he—”

“Rosalia.” Enrique spoke quietly, but the sound of his voice stopped her as effectively as a shout.

There were four entrances to the kitchen: one from the main hallway, and that was the way I’d come, a second on the north, probably leading to a wash area, a third that led directly to the dining room, and a fourth to the outside.

Enrique stood in the second doorway.

As I looked toward him I caught the tiny, almost imperceptible movement in the doorway into the dining room.

But the door didn’t continue to open.

I looked at Enrique while keeping that just barely opened dining-room door in my peripheral vision. “Enrique, I’m glad you’ve come.” I wasn’t going to admit defeat without a fight. “As you can see, I’m trying to get a better picture of the relationships between Mr. Prescott and members of his family. And staff. I know people who work for Mr. Prescott have probably visited often enough that you can help there, too.”

He continued to look at his wife, his coal-black eyes hard.

I had underestimated this man. He was a type I knew—lean, tough, muscled, usually a soldier of some kind, often a guerrilla. His pockmarked face was impassive, but he radiated a particular kind of arrogance, the machismo that sees women solely as objects, either of veneration or lust, but never as partners and companions. This was a man who would do what he had to do to survive, and he would do it without compunction.

“As you were saying, Rosalia,” I encouraged, “about Elizabeth Prescott, Roger’s mother.”

She lifted her eyes, and there was stark fear in them. Her voice was high and unconvincing. “Mr. Prescott took her to many, many clinics, many doctors, but the cancer, it was too big. They found it too late.” Her hands made a shape—a cancer the size of a grapefruit?—and her eyes implored me.

I knew with the certainty of stone that this was not what she had begun to say when her husband intruded.

She picked up a spatula and a spoon and carried them to the sink. “It was such a hard time, so much pain for Mr. Roger.”

“And for Mr. Prescott?”

“It is difficult for a man to lose his wife.” Enrique’s eyes glittered. He folded his arms across his chest. “It was very hard for Mr. Prescott.”

Had that door to the dining room moved just another fraction?

“How soon did he remarry?” I met Enrique’s steely gaze.

Our immediate and complete antipathy couldn’t have been stronger had we engaged in a shouting match.

Neither of us gave an inch.

Rosalia looked swiftly toward her husband. She seemed to shrink inside her dress as she stood there, her body drawing in upon itself, tightening.

My eyes challenged Enrique’s for a measure longer, then I turned to her. “I imagine you remember when a new mistress came in.”

Enrique turned his angry face toward his wife.

Rosalia didn’t look at him. She murmured, “The funeral was in April. And the wedding was in October.” She gave me a lightning-swift look.