Hide Yourself Away (30 page)

Grace chose the same seat that she had taken when she had been in this living room the night she came to the clambake. But Joss didn’t sit beside her on the sofa as Madeleine had. She positioned herself in a wing chair across the living room. “All right, Grace. What did you want to talk about?” “I just came from Broadway Tattoos.” “And?”

“Rusty told me how he came to make that design,” said Grace. “You know. The one you asked him about.” “What did he tell you?” Joss’s foot bounced.

Grace decided that she should give something to get something. “He said he copied it from an earring. An earring that Charlotte Sloane lost in his car the night she disappeared.”

“Jesus.” Joss uncrossed her bare legs and leaned forward in her chair. “He could be the one who killed Charlotte.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Joss. You were very interested in the design when you saw it in Rusty’s book last night. I’m wondering why.”

Grace could almost see the wheels spinning in the former intern’s mind.

“All right. What the hell,” Joss said, her decision made. “Wait a minute.” She stood up and walked out of the living room. When she came back again, she was carrying her purse. She pulled a folded paper from it and handed it to Grace.

Unfolding the paper, Grace looked at the sketch. The sundial design.

“Rusty may have one of the earrings, Grace, but the police have its twin. It was found in the pocket of Charlotte’s evening gown. The cops haven’t made that information public though.”

“How do you know?” Grace asked, still looking at the paper.

“I have a good source,” Joss said in a tone that left no doubt she wouldn’t be telling Grace who it was. “But, trust me, I saw the earring myself.”

Grace was all for the principle of not revealing one’s sources, so she didn’t push Joss. But she was intrigued by the additional drawing at the bottom of the paper.

“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the penciled square.

“Oh, that’s the other thing that was found in Charlotte’s dress,” Joss answered. “A lemon-yellow silk handkerchief.”

As she watched Grace walk down the driveway, Joss remembered Charlotte’s diary. She was about to call out to Grace but thought better of it. Joss worried she had already said too much.

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113

What a colossal break.

Madeleine’s autopsy results were another clear signal from the authorities that you really
could
get away with murder.

But the coast wasn’t clear yet. If Sam Watkins came to, that would be a major problem. Still, it was best to wait and see, and hope that heaven would provide another blessing, taking the young man home.

Zoe Quigley, thank God, would never be able to tell anyone what she saw.

But Grace Callahan was a wild card. Was Grace getting too close?

  CHAPTER  
114

Grace showered and shampooed her hair, spending extra time to blow-dry the honey-colored strands into soft, fluffy curls. She applied her makeup, paying special attention to her eyes, shadowing the lids in smoky blue-gray and applying a thin liner to the bottoms and tops. As she whisked the mascara wand across her lashes, she noticed her bare fingernails. It was too late to get a manicure, but at least her nails could be shaped and buffed.

She rummaged through her cosmetics kit, finding an emery board at the bottom. Pulling her robe on, she went out into the bedroom, sat down on the bed, and began to file. After a few minutes she was satisfied that, while not glamorous, her nails were presentable.

There was still fifteen minutes before she had to be ready for The Elms, and Grace didn’t want to put on her dress until the
very last second. Linen wrinkled so easily. So she decided to put her feet up, lie back, and close her eyes, hoping a short rest would refresh her. But she couldn’t relax. Rusty’s story kept running through her mind, along with the information she had gotten from Joss.

Grace sat up anxiously and thought of calling Lucy again. As she reached for the phone, she spotted the scrimshaw paperweight, Oliver’s gift to her, sitting on the nightstand. She picked it up and ran her hand over the smooth, cool surface.

With the emery board right there, she decided, just out of curiosity, to try Kyle Seaton’s test. Grace picked a spot on the underside of the paperweight and briskly pulled the emery board back and forth across the surface, fully expecting to smell the odor of burning bone.

Instead, her nostrils picked up the scent of smoldering plastic.

Oliver’s paperweight was fakeshaw.

There was a knock at the door.

“Who’s there?” called Grace.

“It’s me. B.J.”

“Just a minute. I’ll be right there.”

She had thought she would be meeting him in the lobby. Grace hurried to zip up her dress as she walked, barefoot, to the door.

B.J. stood there, tanned and freshly showered, wearing a navy blazer, crisp white shirt, and pale blue tie, his beige slacks pressed, his shoes polished. He held out a small, square, white box.

“For me? You brought flowers for me?” Grace was delighted. Not only had it been ages since she’d been given flowers, but it had been even longer since she had been given flowers by anyone who excited her.

B.J. grinned, pleased at her reaction. “I thought you might like them.”

“Like them? I love them.” Grace studied the soft blue blossoms. “They’re exquisite, B.J. Thank you.”

Carefully, she lifted the corsage from the box. “Where do you think I should wear them? On my dress or my wrist?”

B.J. reached out and pushed back a loose strand of Grace’s hair. “How about here, in your hair?”

“All right. Have a seat for a minute while I go do it.”

Grace went into the bathroom, where she stood before the mirror and gathered her hair up on one side, attaching the flowers with bobby pins.

“Nice scrimshaw,” B.J. called from the outer room, picking up the paperweight from the night table.

“It’s fake,” Grace said. “I tried the scrimshaw test on it.”

“You didn’t expect it to be the real thing, did you?”

“Actually, I did, considering where it came from. Oliver Sloane gave it to me this afternoon.”

“You’re kidding. How did that happen?” B.J. asked.

“I went to pay a condolence call and he was touched. He insisted I take the paperweight in memory of Madeleine.”

“Think Oliver knew it was a fake?”

Grace fastened the last bobby pin and stood back to observe the effect in the mirror. “I kind of doubt it,” she called. “The way his study looked, I wouldn’t think anything but the best is good enough for Oliver Sloane.”

“Are you gonna tell him?”

“Maybe I should. Kyle Seaton told me at the clambake that Oliver and Charlotte had been great customers. I wonder if Kyle sold Oliver that paperweight.”

She gave her hair one last primp. “How do I look?” she asked, coming back into the bedroom.

B.J. looked at her with appreciation. “Dynamite. You look great, Grace.”

Too bad Lauren Adams was going with them in the car.

Grace knew that they would be working tonight, but it felt like she and B.J. were going out on a date. Fake scrimshaw and sundial earrings were forgotten for a while as she slipped on her new sandals and gathered up her clutch bag. “Shall we go?”

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115

Izzie lit the candle next to the tiny holy statue perched on the tub’s edge and eased herself into the warm water.

“Ahhhh,” she moaned in relief. She was going to have to give her notice at the Viking. She’d clean those rooms until the end of the week and then no more.

Izzie stared at the statue of the young maiden dressed in blue and pink robes. Her expression was so serene, though Izzie knew she had endured the tortures of the damned. Young, beautiful, and rich, she had lived a life consecrated to God and had been beaten, imprisoned, and tortured by her enemies, her breasts crushed and cut off before she was finally dragged on burning coals until she died.

“Saint Agatha,” Izzie prayed, “please help me.” The patron saint of nurses, firefighters, and women suffering from breast cancer silently stared back at the chambermaid. Izzie knew the Christian faith taught that the pain and affliction of this world would be surpassed by the spiritual bliss of the next. She was
counting on that and was eager to be with her Padraic again.
It shouldn’t be too long now, Paddy, my love.

Dipping a washcloth in the water, Izzie gently rubbed it across her scarred chest, all the while staring at the statue. How strange it was that her adult life had started out with one Agatha and was ending with another. She had learned the skills of making a bed the way Miss Agatha liked it and polishing porcelain tubs and basins until they shone under Finola’s strict tutelage at Shepherd’s Point. She might have worked there still had she and Paddy not been in the playhouse the night Miss Charlotte was murdered. After that terrifying time in the old slave tunnel, crouched beside Miss Charlotte’s lifeless body, and the threatening letter that had come afterward, Izzie had wanted to escape from Shepherd’s Point and the horrific memories.

She struggled to lift herself from the tub. She dried herself off, patting at the pink V-shaped scars on her chest, and took her thin cotton nightgown from the hook on the back of the bathroom door. Then she padded to the kitchen, put the kettle on to boil, and steeled herself to tackle the pile of mail that had been accumulating, unexamined, all week.

Bill. Bill. Junk mail. Bill. The next envelope caused Izzie to take a deep, troubled breath. She recognized the exaggerated handwriting that she had studied hundreds of times before. Another letter from the same person who had threatened Paddy so effectively all those years ago, threatening to place him at Charlotte Sloane’s murder scene. But this time, the letter was addressed to her.

The kettle whistled, making her jump. Izzie turned off the stove but didn’t bother to pour the water over the tea bag. She went back to the table, her hands quivering as she opened the letter.

I WARNED YOUR HUSBAND FOURTEEN YEARS AGO AND I’M WARNING YOU NOW. DON’T THINK BECAUSE THE BONES IN THE SLAVE TUNNEL WERE FOUND THAT THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO REVEAL WHAT YOU KNOW OR WHAT YOU
THINK
YOU KNOW.

I STILL HAVE THE WALLET LEFT BEHIND IN THE PLAYHOUSE THE NIGHT CHARLOTTE SLOANE DIED. IF YOU GO TO THE POLICE WITH THE PHOTO, I’LL PRODUCE THE WALLET. WHO DO YOU THINK THE POLICE WILL BELIEVE? YOU OR ME?

As Izzie read the letter over again, the fear she felt began to turn to anger. She had done nothing wrong except to love Paddy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet they had worried themselves sick over the years that they would be accused of murdering Charlotte should her body, and Padraic’s wallet, ever turn up. Izzie had wept many nights, wanting to do the right thing and tell the police what had happened that night. But as she and Paddy had studied the photograph that had come spiraling down from the playhouse to rest on Charlotte Sloane’s body, they agreed over and over again that there was nothing in it that could really incriminate anybody. They were never quite sure what the murderer was so worried about, but they were certain that they would look guilty if the story of Padraic’s wallet being found in the playhouse were ever told.

Izzie stood and opened the cupboard door, pulled out the cookbooks at the front, and felt for the cellophane envelope. Her hands still shook, but now with rage, as she carefully slid out the contents. Enough was enough.

She had little time left in this world, but she was going to go to the next one with a guiltless conscience. And if, in the process, she helped another hardworking young woman who could use a boost, so much the better. She had this old photograph and Miss Charlotte’s photocopied diary she had pulled from the wastebasket today. She was going to give them both to that kind Grace Callahan and maybe help her with that career of hers.

  CHAPTER  
116

The chauffeured town car waited in the driveway as Oliver, dressed in a dinner jacket, got out and knocked on Elsa’s door. A golden cuff link glistened against his bright white shirt cuff as he impatiently lifted the seagull door knocker. The last time he’d worn the sundial cuff links was at the country club party the night Charlotte disappeared. For all these years, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to use the last anniversary gift from his
missing wife. But now, knowing Charlotte was truly gone, it seemed appropriate to wear the links in her memory.