Engaged in Death (A Wedding Planner Mystery) (12 page)

The other documents included long depositions from Will’s mother and his doctors on the plaintiff’s side and various Lonestar employees, including Shane Hartley, for the defense. Shane came off just as pushy and arrogant in his testimony as he had on Sylvia’s porch. He insinuated over and over again that Will was a smoker, ergo he’d had a hand in what Shane deemed “an unfortunate accident.” He was a skilled witness for Lonestar, casting doubt as to whether the gas leak was even Lonestar’s fault, as the company didn’t have any drilling operations on the Prentisses’ land, just the next farm over.

Still, this case would probably never go to trial. Lonestar wouldn’t take the chance a jury would award Will a big payout. Having met him and experienced his gentle charm, I knew he’d definitely elicit sympathy. Why hadn’t the case settled already? Could Will have killed Shane Hartley? He certainly had reason to hate Lonestar, and even Shane, after the suit had dragged on. Will’s mother had been reduced to tears during her deposition.

I was startled by a rap on my office door. Closed doors were frowned upon at Russell Carey, but I needed a heads-up. Will Prentiss’s case documents were still displayed on the monitor. I locked my computer screen and croaked, “Come in,” expecting it to be my assistant. It wasn’t.

“Alan, what brings you here?” I instantly brightened, feigning enthusiasm and verve.

“Am I interrupting your lunch?”

“I was just about finished.” I sequestered the half-eaten salad behind a pile of discovery requests.

“I’ll get right to the point. I’m here to discuss one of the firm’s clients, Helene Pierce.”

My salad congealed in the bottom of my stomach. The firm managed some of her investments, but I didn’t really think of her as a client.

“We’ve handled a lot of business for the Pierces over the years.”

I bobbed my head in assent, but didn’t trust myself to reply.

Alan, of course, knew about my broken engagement and relationship to the Pierces, as he’d alluded to my “personal problems.” He towered over me, probably waiting for me to jump in and fill the silence. I stayed quiet for once.

“Why don’t you fill me in about the Pierces’ artwork that may be . . . temporarily in your possession, so we can solve this little mess?”

Giving me just enough rope to hang myself
. “I inherited Sylvia Pierce’s house. Actually, she deeded it to me, free and clear. Helene Pierce is furious it wasn’t willed to her. That’s really all that’s going on. I’m not sure any artwork exists. Or how the Pierces, with all due respect, have anything to do with me or my work here.”

“You have your senior associate promotion review later this summer, to see if you’re more partner material, or just counsel.” Alan’s face was devoid of emotion. “Or”—he narrowed his tired eyes—“if you’d be better off working somewhere else.”

I clenched my teeth so hard I feared they’d crack. I couldn’t believe he’d gone there.

“Yes,” I whispered, a glint of fear replacing my ire.

“I’m not saying you need to capitulate to Helene Pierce, but the Pierces are upstanding members of the community, with a long history in western Pennsylvania. As you know”—here, he smirked—“Keith Pierce used to be an attorney here, and his father before him. The Pierces have a right to know if there are valuable things in that house and what’s going on, until this is all straightened out.”

I gave Alan a stony smile and willed my beating heart to slow down. “A woman was treated badly by her daughter-in-law and grandson. She gave her house to someone who actually gave a damn about her. Now they want the house back. It’s too late. They don’t deserve to know anything about anything, much less have a right to paw through
my house
.” I tried to focus on a spot above Alan’s head. If I dared look in his eyes, I feared I’d leap across the desk and claw them out of his skull.

“I can see I’ve upset you. I just don’t see why you’d oppose a woman who is a business associate with Lonestar Energy, a client that generates fifteen percent of our firm’s profits. I can’t fathom why someone who wants to be a partner at Russell Carey would even think about doing that. Do you have any idea what will happen if the Pierces take you to court over this? You have a good shot of making partner
someday
, but frankly, that might need to be taken off the table unless I see some cooperation.”

The wheels were churning in my head, which was still recovering from his ambush.
What did he say before his thinly veiled threats? Helene has a business relationship with Lonestar Energy?

My phone mercifully began to ring.

“I have to take this.” I glowered at Alan, one hand on the phone.

He sighed and moved away from my desk. “Think about your career here, Mallory.” He shut the door behind him.

I glanced at the phone. It was Olivia. I let it ring.

I swiveled my chair to face the window. A window I’d rarely looked out of in the six years I’d toiled here, trying to prove myself. Far below me, on the pavement, men and women went about their day, carrying out errands, rushing to appointments, and greeting each other. Hundreds of feet above them, I began to panic. Helene’s retribution worked fast.

I fled Russell Carey minutes after Alan left, racing back home to Port Quincy.

Awesome. I’m starting to think of this place as home.
It was turning into more of a home than Pittsburgh, as the quirky little town was beginning to grow on me. Whenever I saw Yvette Tannenbaum outside her father’s auto body shop, she gave a friendly wave, and Bev Mitchell stopped to chat when I ran into her at the grocery store. It was a charming town with a slower pace of living I could actually get used to. I was committed to staying until I unraveled the mystery of the paintings, until I sold Sylvia’s house, and until I found a bride to take over my wedding reception. Shane Hartley’s murder was another matter. I’d leave that to Faith and Chief Truman.

“Why are you home so early?” Rachel’s apron was covered with floured handprints. The kitchen was a baking explosion. A smell both spicy and sweet wafted from the oven. My stomach growled with approval.

“Tough day at work.” I gave her a look that pled,
Please don’t ask me to explain.

Rachel poured me a glass of milk and cut me a hefty piece of spice cake, fresh and warm from the oven.

“This is what you did for me when I had a bad day at school, remember?”

I remembered. The role reversal hit me hard. When had this happened? When I’d first heard my sister was in town, I’d worried it would be the status quo: me bailing her out of messes, taking care of her, and making sure she didn’t get into trouble. We’d be back to the days when our father had just walked out. But instead Rachel was my rock, while my carefully orchestrated life was going up in flames.

“Thanks.” I dabbed at my milk moustache. “Let’s try to find out if the rumor about the paintings is true. I’ve been getting some pressure at work about Helene.”

“Helene?” Rachel stopped cleaning and wheeled around. “What does she have to do with your work?”

“Alan, the partner I work for, visited me today.” I drew a figure eight over and over again in a little puddle of milk on the old table. “It seems Helene and Lonestar have some type of business agreement, but I can’t tell what it is. I searched for any documents the firm has that might relate to those two.”

“What did you find?”

“Tons of Lonestar stuff, but the three docs that mentioned Helene were password protected.”

“I’m still confused. I get that Helene wants to get her hands on those paintings, if they exist, but what’s that have to do with Lonestar Energy?”

“I’m not sure, but Helene is using the firm to threaten me, and if anyone’s going to find the paintings, I want it to be us.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

We spent the next three hours combing every inch of Thistle Park. We shined flashlights behind heavy furniture, inched into crawl spaces in the basement, and even dared to venture into the coal cellar. We opened trunks, cabinets, and the belly of the big grandfather clock with its disapproving man-in-the-moon face. We unleashed moths and dust and learned where all of the keys on the key ring fit. I took particular care in the dining room, since that’s where Keith had been looking. I found an antique pistol that looked like it hadn’t been fired in decades and dropped it into a heavy vase next to the fireplace for safekeeping.

“Just because they hung here once,” Rachel panted, helping me move the heavy credenza back in place, “doesn’t mean they were hidden here.”

“I’m beginning to doubt this legend, that note notwithstanding.” The note with no signature was tacked onto the refrigerator. “It could be real, but someone found the paintings before the dining room and kitchen burned and Sylvia and the gardener ran off.”

Rachel shrugged, and we continued our search. We ended on the third floor. After Will and the police had left the other day, we’d explored it briefly, but it was much more sparsely furnished than the lower two floors. Today, Whiskey and Soda accompanied us.

“This isn’t a kitty toilet,” I reminded them as they nosed around.

“I think I’ll tackle that room.” Rachel gestured down the hall to the love nest. I hadn’t entered it after the police left, and we’d left it even dustier than when we’d found it, thanks to Faith’s attempt to take fingerprints.

“You’re the best.” I gave my sister’s arm a squeeze. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Rachel beamed and set off down the hallway, with a trash bag to eradicate all traces of trespassing lovers from the small chamber. I was still convinced it had been Keith and Becca. I briefly closed my eyes against that thought, then slowly walked around the third floor, peeking into empty wardrobes and ducking the sloping ceilings.

“I’m glad there’s another bathroom.” I turned on the faucet, which ran brown, then clear.

Rachel returned and shook her head with wonder. “All of these bedrooms, and we thought there was only one bathroom. This’ll make it way easier to turn this place into a B and B. This floor is huge. We, I mean you, could comfortably live up here and rent out the other two floors.”

“Not gonna happen, Rach. I’d love to.” My voice was weighed down with regret. I didn’t admit I’d been daydreaming the same thing. It wouldn’t help me focus at work if I pined away for an escape plan that was impossible. I had to be practical. “I don’t have the time, or the money, especially since I can’t get my wedding deposit back.” Case closed.

I left the hall to inspect the final bedroom. This one held a few boxes and a large trunk. The other bedrooms were similarly sparse with thin metal beds and small dressers. “Servants quarters,” Chief Truman had mused.

“Maybe they’re in here.” My voice held no real conviction. The trunk was large, but not big enough for framed paintings. I flipped open the creaky lid, the leather straps disintegrating at my touch. It contained clothes that were more than a century old, by the looks of them.

“Ooh, this is gorgeous.” Rachel sighed with delight, grabbing a creamy lace dress. She held it up to herself and performed a twirl.

“They were teeny back then.” The dress would only cover Rachel’s mid-calf. It might fit me since I was short, but only if I wore an actual corset to whittle my waist down to nothing. Spanx weren’t gonna cut it.

I dug out a small bound leather book.

“Let me see!” Rachel slipped into little-sister mode. She used her height to her advantage and plucked the book easily from my fingers, dropping the elaborate dress.

“It’s a journal or diary.” Rachel lowered it to my eye level and flipped it open.

We peered into the worn leather book.

“‘Sylvia McGavitt.’” I traced the slanting brown ink. “‘Port Quincy, Pennsylvania, nineteen-thirty.’” I flipped to where her writings ended. “The last entry is December fourteen, nineteen-thirty-four. There might be a clue about where the paintings are hidden in here!”

Rachel had already lost interest and handed me the journal, and was pawing through the trunk of clothes. She set a small cloche hat on her gleaming waves at a jaunty angle. “Do you think I could pull this off?”

“Definitely.” I sunk to the floor, engrossed in the diary. I spent the next hour there, getting lost in Sylvia’s teenage world. My present troubles were long forgotten.

* * *

“So, her maid caught her doing the deed with her secret fiancé, the gardener.” Rachel flipped through to the end of the diary as I had. “I didn’t even think they had sex back then.” My sister closed it with an amused look.

“Watch out!” I motioned to the cup of tea perched precariously close to the old diary.

“Oh, please.” Rachel gave me the stink eye. “You were reading this in the tub!”

“I was super careful.” My cheeks grew hot. It was true. I had taken the diary with me for a long soak, now that we’d scrubbed the old claw foot clean. “And, of course, they had sex! Even out of wedlock. And we already knew Sylvia eloped with him. It isn’t surprising they were, um, together beforehand. At least now we know his name.”

My sister flipped to the end. “Yeah, Albert Smoot.” She giggled. “Wow. Her maid was
pissed.
”

My ears heated, too, as I leaned over to re-read the entry. I’d read the beginning of the diary, when Sylvia was fourteen. Her days had been filled with private governess lessons and all of the diversions and privileges of wealthy daughters of robber barons living in Pittsburgh’s East End. Then her father had moved the family to Port Quincy, to keep a closer eye on his glass factory. Most of the staff had been new, and Sylvia had had no friends, except for her maid and the gardener.

I’d skimmed while I soaked in the bath, trying to find any clues about the paintings. Sylvia mentioned yearly trips to Europe, where her mother and father sated their thirst for artwork. Some pieces she mentioned by artist, and others she referenced obliquely. Any three of them could be the paintings in question.

Sylvia had started a relationship with the gardener, Albert Smoot, who’d promised to take her away from Port Quincy and back to Pittsburgh. On the eve of their elopement, Sylvia’s maid had found her and Smoot in a compromising position.

“I guess Sylvia and Albert eloped because she was afraid her maid would tell on her, and Sylvia was going to take the paintings to finance her escape, but someone found out and hid them first?”

“Or maybe they burned and we’re just wasting our time,” Rachel sighed.

“Eek!” I dropped the diary, which tumbled to the floor. Little bits of leather flaked onto the floor. “Someone’s at the window.”

It was Zach, and Rachel bounded up to let him in the back door. I averted my eyes as he brushed my sister’s lips with a swift kiss.
That was fast
. I chastised myself for being bitchy. I wanted my sister to be happy, and Zach seemed to make her light up inside.

“You need to get that front doorbell fixed. I saw your car out front and figured you were home. I have good news.” He beamed as Rachel poured him a cup of tea. “A buyer.”

“Who?” I perked up.

Zach’s face fell marginally. “It’s a gas company—”

“Absolutely not. That’s not what Sylvia wanted.” I recalled Will Prentiss’s deposition, his catalog of wrongs and injuries, and shivered.

“I know.” Zach nodded in agreement, a blond lock bobbing along.

Rachel reached over and smoothed it back in place for him.

He returned her gesture with a syrupy gaze.

“But it isn’t Lonestar Energy, at least. It’s one of the smaller fracking players. Frankly, you’re going to have a hard time selling this place to someone who wants to
live
here. The cost to renovate, not to mention that someone was killed here . . .” He slipped me a piece of paper. “That’s the offer.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I bit into a peanut-butter cookie, ignoring the folded paper. “These are amazing,” I said through a mouthful of peanut-buttery crumbled goodness.

“Thank you. Don’t change the subject.” Rachel was well versed in my evasion techniques.

“Just consider it,” Zach said. “It’s sweet you’re trying to honor Sylvia’s wishes, but you need to think of yourself. This house could bankrupt you, especially if you’re still living here in the wintertime.”

I cringed and swallowed the rest of the cookie in one bite. He was right. There was no way I could afford to heat all three floors, even just to keep the pipes from freezing. The mansion had been built in a time of cheap and plentiful coal, and now we were in a time when energy was dear. That was what had led to this whole fracking business in the first place, an insatiable need for new sources of energy. I shivered again, no longer thinking of the horrors that had befallen Will Prentiss. Instead, I was thinking of my dwindling bank account. I opened the piece of paper and nearly choked on the last bit of cookie. “Holy crap!”

Zach gave me a smug smile. “Think about it.”

Rachel reached for the paper, but I was too quick. I shoved it into my pocket. She shrugged. Zach would probably tell her later.

“What is this?” Zach gingerly picked up the worn leather diary. Bits of dry burgundy leather crumbled off like burnt bacon.

“It’s Sylvia’s diary.” I could hardly bear watching him flip through the pages, though he was doing so with great care.

“Wow.” He let out a low whistle. “I bet Tabby can’t wait to see this.”

Rachel frowned at Zach’s mention of his old flame, by her pet name, no less.

“She doesn’t know yet. I caught Keith in here looking for something. Maybe this was it? We had all of the locks changed.”

Zach looked up in surprise. “That’s not necessary, is it?”

I shrugged. “Keith has a little problem with boundaries. Threatening him won’t keep him out. Will Prentiss changed them for us.”

Zach knitted his blond brows together. “Will helped Sylvia a lot with the upkeep on this place, but he’s kind of creepy.”

“He’s just shy.” I leapt in to defend Will. “And he’s been through a lot, what with the gas explosion and his injuries.”

“He seems nice,” Rachel agreed. “Why d’you think he’s creepy?”

“I guess that’s the wrong word,” Zach backpedaled. “I’m not sure if he did such thorough work helping out Sylvia. She just kicked him the odd job because she felt sorry for him. Look at this place. He could have done more to keep it up—that is, before his accident.”

“Be that as it may, he did a good job changing our locks. And he seems to know a lot about the house.” Then again, maybe he wouldn’t need to take odd jobs soon. I was sure Lonestar would be settling with Will and, judging from the extent of his injuries, the settlement would be pretty sizeable.

“Where did you find this?” Zach was still leafing through the diary.

“The attic,” I said slowly.

“Maybe this will help you find those paintings.” He shook the book gently, as if it would reveal its secrets with some prodding.

“I don’t think so. It ends the night before the fire, the night before Sylvia and Albert Smoot eloped.”