Murder at the Bellamy Mansion (12 page)

“
We’ll have shrimp with garlic, both considered aphrodisiacs in many cultures. For dessert there will be chocolate covered strawberries. We’ll have wine, of course, but we’ll also serve ginseng tea, because the ginseng root looks like a . . .” At this point Kimberly covered her mouth and giggled. “A ‘you know what’. They call it the ‘man root’,” she explained.

Melanie raised her eyebrows at Kimberly’s naiveté. “Let’s talk about the wedding cake,” she said.

“
If you want,” Kimberly went on, “I could have menu cards printed up describing the aphrodisiacal properties in each of the ingredients we’re serving.”

“
That’s a wonderful idea, Kimberly,” Melanie said. To Elaine, she said, “You’ve got yourself a real gem here, honeybunch. But there isn’t time to involve a printer. We don’t even have time to have invitations printed.”

“
Oh, I could do that for you in no time,” Kimberly offered. “Maybe you don’t know, but I graduated in computer science at the University. I’m good with computers and computer programs. I can get them to do just about anything. And I’ve got a part-time job helping out in the computer lab, so I can design and print out the menus and the invitations while I’m tutoring the students.”

Melanie could not restrain herself, she gave Kimberly a squeeze. “You are a godsend.” To Elaine, she said, “Like I said, honeybunch, you’ve got yourself a jewel.

“
Now remember, hearts are the theme. We could have invitations with borders of small intertwined hearts.”

“
I can do that,” Kimberly said. “How many people are you inviting?”

“
Not many. The list is up to forty now. We’re keeping this small.”

“
So if you invite forty, you may get . . . how many acceptances? Thirty maybe?” Kimberly asked.

Elaine snorted. “Kimberly, you don’t know who you are dealing with here. If Melanie invites forty, forty will show. Local society folks have been known to kill each other to get on her guest lists.”

Melanie flipped her hair. But what Elaine had said was true. Organizations were always begging Melanie to head up their fund raisers because with her name on the invitations, attendance would be high.

“
Now for the cake, Elaine,” Melanie said. “I definitely want to use Celeste again. The cakes she made for our wedding were out of this world. But for Scarlett, I thought we could do four round tiers, with white fondant frosting and cascades of red roses made of sugar. What do you think?”

“
Simple and traditional is always a wise choice, Melanie,” Elaine agreed.

“
What do you think, Kimberly?”

“
What you have described is perfect, Melanie. You have excellent taste. Has anyone ever told you that?”

I suppressed a snort. Where had I heard that one before?

There were pounding footsteps on the back porch stairs, a door slammed, and a woman marched in through the family parlor, wind-blown and out of breath. “Sorry to be late. What a morning I’ve had. And what is that infernal racket?” she cried, flashing angry brown eyes upward toward the ceiling. “You can hear that noise all the way out on Market Street.”

You could hear Jon’s hammering, but distantly. It was not an infernal racket.

I was momentarily taken aback. And angry as well. Jon and I were giving our time and labor to this project. Was appreciation and understanding too much to expect?

The woman nodded to Elaine, ignored Kimberly, then raked her chilly eyes over Melanie and me. She discounted me as I was dressed in khakis and a flannel shirt. The only one left was Melanie.

She marched up to Melanie and extended her hand. “I’m Vanessa Holder. You must be my client, Melissa Wilkes.”

I bite the insides of my cheeks. Uh oh. This woman had no idea what she was in for. She did not know Melanie? Everyone in town knew who my sister was. And she had called her Melissa?

A brief grimace crossed Melanie’s face then disappeared. She accepted the woman’s hand. “I am Melanie Wilkes.” She emphasized her first name.

“
OK,” Melanie said briskly. “Since you are late, we don’t have much time so let’s dispense with the chit-chat. I understand you’ve worked with the staff here before. Is that true?”

Vanessa’s chin shot up. “I am the Museum’s preferred party planner. I have planned and executed many weddings and parties here at the mansion. I work with only the best families. I have an excellent working relationship with the staff. And before my wedding planning career consumed all of my time, I volunteered here as a docent for many years. So I know every nook and cranny in this house.”

She gave Melanie a look that said: That should satisfy you.

Then she went on, “I am booked up six months in advance so were it not for the groom’s unfortunate . . . ah, altered financial situation, I would not be available to plan your little wedding.”

Melanie opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and clammed up. What Vanessa had said was true. Without her, Melanie would have to do all of the work herself.

“
Now for your part, madam,” and Vanessa uttered the title ‘madam’ as if she had doubts, “I hope you’ve got a guest list for me so I know how many we’re preparing for, and I hope you’ve got . . . how long is that racket going to go on? I can’t hear myself think. And I’ve got a splitting headache.”

Talk about an attitude. “Since there aren’t any guests inside the mansion right now, Vanessa,” I said defensively, “this is a good time for us to work on the belvedere. We have to plan our schedule around the tourists. And today we’ve got plywood to insert in the window openings, and a railing to repair.”

Perhaps she did not know that I was one of the restorers. “Tomorrow, we plan to work on the windows at a shop off site. So we won’t be here to annoy you with our noise. That is, if you are here.”

Vanessa peered at me questioningly. She was about fifty with a cloud of white hair, black eyebrows and lashes, and very dark brown eyes. Her makeup was applied with a heavy hand. She wore a severe tailored black wool suit that was out of style since it had shoulder pads the size of a football player’s gear; the kind of suit that was popular when I was a child. The straight black skirt hit her legs mid-calf and made her appear foreshortened.

She gave me another frosty look. “I didn’t realize you were associated with this . . . this repair job. I thought you were a client.”

“
I am both,” I said evenly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get back upstairs to the belvedere and see if Jon needs any assistance.

“
Melanie, you can arrange the tables and the seating however you think best.

“
Elaine and Kimberly, your menu sounds wonderful.”

Suddenly a tone of hostility had overtaken our fun wedding plans, undoing all of the pleasure of Kimberly’s intriguing menu. Vanessa Holder was the sort of person who created havoc wherever she went. I’d known those types before.

I climbed the stairs slowly, my knees still a little sore. And I felt an overwhelming dislike for Vanessa Holder and wondered if she truly had planned many weddings for the mansion. And what kind of docent had she made with that snooty attitude of hers?

She was definitely not a people person. And she seemed to take personal offense at the repairs we were executing in the belvedere.

16

Everyone who knows me knows that I am no cook. Neither is Jon. Neither is Melanie. But Cam’s hobby is baking cakes. So except for his skills in the baking department, we are all lost souls in the kitchen. Dependent on others to feed us. How helpless is that? The restaurateurs in Wilmington adore us, are always happy to see us coming, and know us by name.

But I do try. And once while traveling I ate a sandwich at Biaggi’s Restaurant in Cary that I loved and have learned to duplicate. Hey, anyone can make a sandwich, right?

I use soft, multigrain bread. Mix Miracle Whip Lite with an equal amount of sweet honey mustard, and spread that on the bread. Two or three slices of honey smoked or hickory smoked - your choice - turkey breast from the Fresh Market’s deli. And then the secret ingredient: thin slices of soft, fully ripened avocado. Oh, yum.

Now I pulled three such sandwiches out of my cooler and passed one each to Lonnie, Jon, and moi. We were sitting on a bench under a huge magnolia tree in Mrs. Bellamy’s garden. I placed my sandwich on the bench between Jon and me and reached into the cooler for a chilled bottle of diet green tea, then filled large paper cups for each of us.

“
Welcome to my café,” I told Jon and Lonnie. “It’s called Magnolia Gardens. And there is only one item on the menu.”

Jon laughed, removed his sandwich from its sandwich baggie, and took a large bite. To Lonnie he said, “That’s because there’s only one item this lady knows how to make. But it’s a real treat, so eat up, my man.”

Lonnie laughed at both of us. “You two tickle my funny bone,” he said.

Lonnie’s scrapes and bruises were on the mend. We weren’t talking much about the incident, just proceeding with great caution. Neither were we taking anything for granted. When we arrived on the site, we checked the mansion over carefully. But usually the caretaker was around when we came in at eight in the morning. We’d find him working on some project, or running the vacuum over the first floor carpeting. When he was around, we felt safer.

We ate our sandwiches in silence for a while. Lonnie swallowed the last bite of his and asked, “Got another one of those in that cooler. That’s a mighty fine sandwich.”

“
Does a polar bear like the snow?” I responded. “Of course, I made extras. I know what kind of appetites you men have got.” And I handed Lonnie a second.

“
Me too,” Jon said. “Thank you kindly, ma’am.”

Lonnie had a lunch box of his own, and he withdrew bags of potato chips and handed them around. Naturally I opened my bag tout de suite. “Exactly what my hips need,” I said.

Jon leaned toward me. “Ashley, you are perfect just the way you are.”

Lonnie laughed. “Ashley, don’t you know you girls are supposed to have them wide hips? How else are you going to carry our babies? No man is attracted to a woman who’s deficient in the booty department. Why do you think we’re all so crazy about Queen Latifah? You white girls are so into skinny, you don’t know what a real man needs.”

Lonnie would have no idea he had touched a raw nerve. If he knew that I had tried to have a baby and had miscarried, he had forgotten. And I most definitely could not blame that failure on skinny hips.

So I did what I always do when I do not want to talk about something: I changed the subject. And Jon, so attuned to me, helped me out.

I told them about our meeting with the uptight wedding planner.

“
I know who Vanessa Holder is,” Lonnie said. “I know all about the Holders. That family has held a grudge against us Hudsons since before the struggle for emancipation. See, the best builders in Wilmington in those days were the African-American artisans. Some free, some slaves. Our people got the jobs building these fine mansions.”

He looked up at the twenty-five foot columns that rose to a paneled ceiling under the piazza’s roof. “The white folks who felt like the work should have come to them really raised a ruckus. Trashed a building under construction by blacks. I don’t know for sure if the Holders were part of that gang, but the word always was that they were.

“
One of the town leaders told the belligerent white carpenters and masons that they were free to go live someplace else anytime they chose. Some did leave. The Holders stayed, and eked out a living somehow.”

“
But surely Vanessa Holder is not still resentful over a grievance that happened over a hundred and fifty years ago?” I said.

“
Folks can hang onto their grudges a long time,” Lonnie said sagely. “Just look at my pa and my uncle Abinah. Those two haven’t spoken since before I was born, and that’s been over fifty years.”

“
What is that feud about, Lonnie?” Jon asked.

The sandwiches had disappeared quickly, and I gathered up the baggies and crumpled paper napkins and stowed them in the cooler.

“
Dang if I know, Jon,” Lonnie replied. “Neither one of them will talk about it.” He grinned. “Truth be told: I don’t think they remember.”

“
I’ve got chocolate chip cookies,” I sang.

“
Well, what are you waiting for? Pass those bad boys around,” Jon said.

Bad boys, indeed. No matter how much food I rejected, I just continued to get rounder and rounder. So what the heck? Might as well enjoy myself. “From my lips to my hips,” I said and took a bite.

Lonnie howled. “Don’t be starting on the hips again. You keep on climbing those stairs up to that belvedere, Ashley. That’ll take care of that cookie you are eating. Better than a stair-step machine any day.”

After I had left Melanie to work out the wedding details with Vanessa Holder, I had climbed the three long flights of stairs to the belvedere. At that point, Jon and Lonnie did not need my help. I was just in the way. And the belvedere was not really large enough to accommodate more than two people working at once.

I stood on the top step, talked to them as they worked, and stared past them out of the windows. There were church spires and tree tops to admire. To the east of the Bellamy Mansion rose the steeple of St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, built at the same time as the Bellamy house.