Murder Under the Palms

EARLY BIRD BOOKS

FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

BE THE FIRST TO KNOW—

NEW DEALS HATCH EVERY DAY!

Murder Under the Palms

A Charlotte Graham Mystery

Stefanie Matteson

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

For Edie,

who’s always been there

1

The feeling struck when they turned into an alleyway leading off the shopping mecca of Worth Avenue, and intensified when the alleyway led them past the cloistered terraces of the old Spanish-colonial-style clubhouse of the exclusive Everglades Club. By the time they turned again, onto the narrow street lined with the columnar trunks of royal palms that overlooked the Everglades’ palm-fringed golf course and caught their first glimpse of the neighborhood of Spanish-colonial homes, Charlotte Graham had begun to experience that wonderfully buoyant sensation that occurs when fantasy takes its place in the seat of reason. When they swung open the ornate black wrought-iron gate that led to the house, she was already starting to fall in love, and by the time they emerged from the walk lined with tall ficus hedges in front of which stood terra-cotta planters of lemon trees heavy with fruit, and into a courtyard that only barely managed to keep the jungle at bay, and looked up at the tower from any of whose spiraling windows Rapunzel might have let her down her golden tresses, Charlotte was fully in love.

At the foot of the tower was a quaint old wooden door studded with iron nails and set into an arched stone frame flanked by iron-grilled windows. Above the door hung a sign that read: “Château en Espagne” or “Castle in Spain.” Because of the Spanish-style architecture, Charlotte assumed. But why, then, was the sign in French?

She had never been the kind of person who was attracted to tropical climates. A Connecticut Yankee by birth, she much preferred the vigorous climate of the temperate latitudes, and, in fact, the only other time she had ever fallen in love with a house was when she bought her cottage on a mountainside overlooking a picturesque harbor in Maine. But she was in her seventies now, and had to admit that the warm, salty breeze that wafted off the ocean just a block and a half away felt good to her old bones. Especially
this
winter, which had been the coldest and harshest in recent memory. Though she hated to admit it, she was also starting to slow down. Maybe not slow down as much as begin to entertain the notion that she might be entitled to a bit of relaxation. It was part of her nature that despite her success, she had never let herself ease up on the iron-willed ambition that had propelled her to the top of her profession. After more than fifty years in front of the cameras and on the stage, one would have thought that her reputation was secure, but in her heart, she had always been an insecure young actress combing the columns of
Variety
for the next casting call.

At last she had reached the point in her life where she might feel comfortable resting on her laurels. And laurels there were aplenty: it seemed that a month didn’t go by these days that she wasn’t honored by one organization or another for “lifetime achievement.” Her public had come to regard her in the same way they might an historic building: as a monument to American culture. And, it struck her, as their small group stood in the courtyard soaking up the magical atmosphere, if one were to allow oneself to entertain the notion of resting on one’s laurels, a house like this would be the place to do it.

“Charming,” said her friend Connie Smith as she stepped up to the cool blue- and green-tiled fountain in the courtyard’s center. She dipped her fingers in the water, and touched them to her forehead. “Utterly charming.”

The house had the old-world air of a home that had weathered the centuries: with its ochre-colored stucco walls and red barrel-tiled roof, it might have been in old Morocco or on the Côte d’Azur or overlooking a canal in Venice. But the house wasn’t in any of those places. Nor was it old. It was in Palm Beach, Florida, a block from the glittering shops of Worth Avenue, and it had been built in the 1920s, part of the Spanish revival building boom that had turned a sleepy barrier island into a winter playground of the wealthy. Charlotte’s old friend, Connie, who had urged her to take refuge from the cold winter as her guest, had been imploring her for years to buy a house in Palm Beach. But she had never been attracted to the enormous old mansions, mausoleumlike Regency-style monstrosities, or glittering condos that made up most of the Palm Beach housing stock. But this was different: an elegant mansion in miniature, a little Spanish-colonial hideaway.

Connie had told her that she would love it, and she had been right. Not that it was even on the market. Which put the brakes on any aquisitive inclinations that Charlotte might have been tempted to give into. And it was doubtful there were others like it: even the other houses on the street were much bigger and showier.

The owner of the house was their dinner host, a man by the name of Paul Feder, a Worth Avenue jeweler, who had been targeted by Marianne Montgomery as her next boyfriend. Marianne was a prominent fashion designer and Connie’s daughter from her first marriage. She was also Charlotte’s goddaughter. It was a relationship that had demanded more of Charlotte than she ever would have expected. Marianne had never been an easy child, and as an adult she was even worse. Charlotte had spent many an hour commiserating with Connie over her daughter’s escapades, most of which involved men, for Marianne was as notorious for her outrageous affairs as she was for her outrageous fashions. Connie and Charlotte may have tallied up three and four marriages respectively, but they had nothing on Marianne, who at plus or minus fifty years old, had been married half a dozen times, most recently, which was seven or eight years ago, to a twenty-year-old Italian prince.

Marianne was fond of explaining away her numerous romantic liaisons with the excuse that each was a “point of light” on her path to artistic enlightenment: the Egyptian statesmen had inspired her Egyptian collection, the rodeo star her Old West collection, the Russian dancer her Ballet Russe collection, and so on. Paul, who was known for his art deco jewelry designs (he had trained in Paris under the tutelage of Fouquet, one of France’s most prominent art deco jewelry designers), was the latest source of illumination on that heavily trodden path. They had met when Marianne approached him to collaborate with her on a line of jewelry that she planned to feature as part of her new art deco fashion collection.

The group invited to dine this evening at Château en Espagne was comprised of Charlotte, Marianne, Connie, and Connie’s husband, Spalding Smith. They would be joined by Marianne’s daughter, Dede, who rented the guest house on the property from their host. The occasion was a preview of the jewelry collection, which was to be officially unveiled at a society function the following evening.

For a few minutes, they lingered in silence in the courtyard, caught in the spell of romantic indolence created by the tranquil violet light of early evening, and the soothing sounds of the water trickling in the fountain and the palms rustling in the soft breeze.

Then Spalding stepped up to the ancient-looking door, and sounded the heavy wrought-iron knocker.

It was Paul himself who answered the door. Unlike many of Marianne’s other lovers, who often came from backgrounds vastly disparate from her own (Charlotte in particular remembered the African nationalist, whose influence on Marianne had resulted in half the socialites in New York sporting dashikis one season), Paul seemed eminently suited to the role for which Marianne had singled him out. First, he was the right age: Charlotte guessed him to be around seventy. Rather old, but older was certainly preferable to younger in Marianne’s case, since her tastes in younger men verged dangerously close to the pubescent. He was very tall—six foot three or four—and very handsome, with a strong jaw and a long, aquiline nose, a high forehead and short, curly gray-white hair. The overall impression was one of aristocratic breeding. He had a military bearing, and for a man of his age, was in excellent shape. Though he bore no title, he supposedly came from minor Russian nobility, and was distantly related to the czars. The Russian association was emphasized by his band-collared linen shirt that buttoned, Cossack-style, down the side. He was also rich: his shops in Palm Beach, New York, and Paris were patronized by the wealthy, and were well-known for their fine jewelry designs. Moreover, he and Marianne shared an interest in the world of fashion and design. Charlotte knew that Connie, for one, found him a very suitable mate for her daughter—which was more than she could have said for any the others—and was secretly hoping that her daughter would settle down at last. Charlotte wasn’t ready to place any bets on it.

After greeting Charlotte’s companions warmly, Paul Feder turned his attention to her. Gazing at her with clear, pale gray, deep-set eyes, he graciously lifted her hand to his lips. “I’m very honored to have you as my guest, madam,” he said, kissing the back of her hand, a gesture which, coming from this dashing gentleman, was as unaffected as a casual wave.