Authors: Ellen Pall
Slightly Abridged (22 page)
The gal, a slender (what else?) blonde in a well-cut business suit, sat toying with something red and fizzy in a Martini glass, politely smiling as her date regaled the admiring staff. Though they had never met, she spotted Juliet before Ted did, looking from him to her and back, and indicating, by an intelligent widening of the eyes, that this was probably his daughterâ?
Ted cut short his story (“It was hilarious!” he assured the waiter), pushed back his chair and came to hug Juliet. He brought her back to the table and introduced her to Dara Chaffe.
Juliet shook the other woman's hand and smiled. To her own surprise, the smile was more or less genuine. There was something likeable about Dara Chaffe. On closer inspection, her face was not the hard, perky mask most of the gals wore, but pretty and uneven and animated by a soft vulnerability quite unlike her bladelike suit. Juliet guessed she was fortyânot too much older than she was herself, but older, at least. When Ted made heavy jokes at Juliet's expense on the subject of how long he had been trying to engineer this meeting, Dara ignored him and adroitly drew his daughter into a conversation about the gradually lengthening days. Juliet wondered why Dara was going out with Ted and guessed she would not be doing so for long.
Dara worked, Juliet soon learned, as a commercial real estate broker. For much of the meal, conversation turned on why she had come to New York (originally, to study music), how she had come to be in business (it beat starving), the state of the Manhattan real estate market, what constituted a Regency romance, whether they were hard to write, French cooking, and other matters that seemed inevitable but entirely beside the point to Juliet in her slightly feverish state of mind.
But after their plates were cleared away and they had ordered dessert (one crème brûlée for Ted and Dara to share, a second for Juliet to regret later on), she was finally able to mention, apropos of Ted's business trip to Pittsburgh that day, that she had been in Espyville over the weekend.
“Oh, that's the strangest thing!” Dara exclaimed at once. “I just met a man who was there on business a few months ago and woke up with a snake in his bed, can you imagine? A copperhead.”
“In Espyville? Was heâwhere was he sleeping?” Juliet asked, envisioning a campsite.
“In a perfectly ordinary motel. A Travelodge or a Comfort Inn or something. He was all right, luckily, but my God! He said it was three feet long.”
“Who was this man?” asked Ted roguishly. “What do you mean, you just met him?”
To her credit, Dara did not smile coyly and tap him lightly on the nose with her fan. She looked a bit uncomfortable, in fact, and, choosing to ignore his tone, explained that she had heard the story at a dinner party, where she was seated next to the man in question, whose last name she could no longer remember.
“Do you know why was he in Espyville?” Juliet asked.
“Oh, yes. He works for a company that develops theme parks, amusement parksâlike Six Flags, Medieval Times, that kind of thing. They're thinking of starting a whole chain of theme parks located near various environmentally pristine tourist destinations. Like a Prairieland, was one he mentioned, and a Desertland. They'll be for families who don't really want to go camping out in the open, maybe, but who want to get the flavor of a place. They'll have rides for kids based on the natural attractionsâlike a geyser ride near Old Faithful, for exampleâand displays of plants and animals native to the place. Like a zoo. And there will be theme restaurants with specialized foods, pretend things like porcupine quills that would really be potato sticks, but also real thingsâbuffalo burgers, venison ⦔
“So why was he in Espyville, do you know?”
“Oh! The flagship park in the chain is supposed to be a place called Wildernessland. His company wanted to open it near the Adirondack Park.”
Wildernessland! Immediately, Juliet heard the word echoed in Ada's thrilling voice. She had spoken it, unintelligibly but with majestic scorn, the very first time she visited Juliet. How could she have forgotten?
“And will they?” she asked, on the edge of her plump, well-upholstered seat. Much as she had talked about development in the
Gloversville area, Caroline Walsh had mentioned nothing of this.
Gloversville area, Caroline Walsh had mentioned nothing of this.
“I don't know, I assume so.”
“How could a copperhead get into a motel room?” asked Ted. “Disgruntled former employee?”
“Oh, it turned out it was an environmental thing. There was a note signed âMother Earth' slipped under the door. Something to the effect of âWarning: Development Equals Death.' Something like that. The poor guy's still having nightmares.”
Juliet murmured sympathetically. So far, she had said nothing to her father of Ada Caffrey's murder. By good luck, the few articles that had mentioned her own connection to the case had appeared in newspapers her father did not read, and her fear that some tabloid fan in his office might have mentioned them to him had apparently not materialized. She was reluctant to let him know more than was necessary. For one thing, if he knew she was a suspect, he would insist on hiring Alan Dershowitz or Johnnie Cochran to represent her. But if anyone could track down the origin and status of the Wildernessland project, it was her father. When Dara excused herself to go to the ladies' room, Juliet took a moment out from praising her to ask Ted to follow up.
“If you can find out, I'd especially like to learn whose land they were looking at for the site,” she said.
“Why? Have a friend up there who might be interested in selling?” Ted asked.
“Something like that.”
“Companies don't much like to talk about that kind of thing ahead of time,” he warned her. “They keep their plans a secret till it's a done deal. So I may not be able to get the exact names.”
“I have faith in you.”
She smiled and, feeling an unexpected surge of affection, patted his arm. After all, he was only a man. Perhaps she would not have made an ideal single parent herself.
Juliet Articulates a Theory
It took Ted Bodine only a few hours to come up with the informa
tion
his daughter had requested. There were not many companies that created theme parks. Nor were there many occasions when his daughter turned to him for help. Precisely which old connections and hidden strings Ted had pulled to find out, Juliet never knew. But at twelve-thirty in the afternoon on the day following the dinner at Le Perigord, his secretary faxed her the information:
tion
his daughter had requested. There were not many companies that created theme parks. Nor were there many occasions when his daughter turned to him for help. Precisely which old connections and hidden strings Ted had pulled to find out, Juliet never knew. But at twelve-thirty in the afternoon on the day following the dinner at Le Perigord, his secretary faxed her the information:
After being promised a number of variances, tax incentives, and the like through the good offices of the local economic development corporation, Fairground Enterprises, a division of Noble Corp., had, on December 10 of the previous year, offered to buy a parcel of landâ375 acres altogetherâconsisting of the adjacent properties of two Espyville landowners: Thomas G. Giddy of 2209 County Road 12 and his neighbor, Ada Case Caffrey. The owners had been given eight weeks to consider the offer, which was approximately triple the going price for acreage in the area. Each offer had been contingent on both parties agreeing to sell.
Mrs. Caffrey's answer, returned by means of a handwritten letter dated December 15, had been an unequivocal, “No.” Her neighbors were interested, however, and had asked that the offer remain on the table for the full eight weeks. Given its picturesqueness and
its proximity to both the state park and the New York State Thruway (as well as its happy distance from a sewage treatment plant that had ruled out a number of otherwise attractive alternative properties), and in light of the generous flexibility of the local government, the proposed parcel represented a particularly advantageous spot. So Fairground had granted the Giddys' request.
its proximity to both the state park and the New York State Thruway (as well as its happy distance from a sewage treatment plant that had ruled out a number of otherwise attractive alternative properties), and in light of the generous flexibility of the local government, the proposed parcel represented a particularly advantageous spot. So Fairground had granted the Giddys' request.
As things had turned out, Ada Caffrey died while the offer was still open. The Giddys had notified Fairground of this fact, and they approached her lawyer, who in turn relayed the offer to her legatee. So far, Free Earth, too, had declined to sell. The offer would expire irrevocably on February 1, at the end of this week.
Before her father's fax about the Fairground offer came through, Juliet had been continuing the work of uniting James Clendinning with his new-found libido. Now she handed the changes to Ames and turned her full attention to making the best use of her father's information. Feeling she owed it to him, since it was chiefly his neck dangling on Skelton's hook, she first called Dennis, to tell him the intriguing news. But Dennis cut her off almost as soon as she'd said hello.
“I'd rather talk in person,” he said. “Could you have dinner tomorrow? Maybe at the restaurant you took me to for my birthday?”
It took Juliet a moment or two, but she caught on to his intention. He did not wish anyone listening in to know where they would be meeting. He did not wish anyone listening in to hear what she'd called to tell him. He believed, in short, that someone was listening in.
Meekly, she agreed.
“Eight o'clock?” he suggested. “Take the long way.”
Juliet hung up feeling uncomfortably cloak-and-dagger, then tried Murray at the station.
“Yo,” he bellowed.
“Murray?”
“Oh, Jule.” His voice dropped. “I was expecting someone else.
Listen, it's a bit of a fluke that you got me. I gotta run. Caught a homicide yesterday morning, gang thing.”
Listen, it's a bit of a fluke that you got me. I gotta run. Caught a homicide yesterday morning, gang thing.”
“Well, I don't want to keep you, butâ”
“Yeah, I gotta fly. But since we're talking, lemme warn you, I'm probably gonna drop out of sight for the next day or two. Don't take it personal.”
Juliet gave up and called Zoe Grossbardt, first at her office, then on her cell phone. She, too, was busy, just on her way in to court for the day.
“I'll be glad to call what's-his-name, Skelton, for you,” she said, her voice clipped, “but I can't get to it till later. Maybe tomorrow, depending on how things go.”
“I'd rather not wait.”
Zoe hesitated briefly. “If you can't wait, call him and tell him yourself,” she said. “But say nothing else. Write down exactly what you're going to say, call up, say it, and hang up the phone.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
It took two hours to get a call back from Skelton, almost time enough to finish the business of converting Sir James to give off a positive erotic charge. Juliet told Skelton it had come to her attention that a potentially lucrative land deal parceling Ada's farm with the Giddy property had been proposed a few weeks before her death. Editing out the fact that she had gone up to Espyville herself, and entirely erasing Landis, she merely asked if he didn't find that suggestive?
Skelton invited her to come down to the station.
“Do I have to? I'm quite busy.”
“Certainly not. At this point in time, you're under no compulsion.”
Irritated by the phrase “at this point in time,” not only for the implication that she might well be compelled at some other “point in time,” but also for its ponderous redundancy, Juliet said she was busy and asked if they couldn't just talk on the phone.
“I find the phone is not as effective a means of communication as a face-to-face meeting, Ms. Bodine. Before I take any action on your allegation, I'd like to discuss it with you directly.”
“Allegation?” Juliet echoed impatiently, then decided to capitulate. She had gotten quite a bit done on the book today. And if he was going to delay investigating this angle until she'd come to see him, she might as well get it over with now. “Oh, fine. Give me fifteen minutes.”
At the precinct house, she found him at his desk, finishing a meatball hero. He must have been out testifying in court or something when she'd called earlier, she thought; instead of his usual khakis and open-collared shirt, he was dressed in a three-piece suit, complete with handkerchief and watch fob. Crowder materialized from some lair beyond the squad room and escorted her into a small, windowed room down the hall, where they sat wordlessly until the other detective arrived.
“Now, you've said you find this offer to buy the victim's land suggestive, Ms. Bodine,” he began, once she had filled him in on Fairground's dates and terms. “In your opinion, what does it suggest?”
Juliet opened her mouth, then closed it. In her excitement about distancing Dennis (and herself) from suspicion, she had forgotten she must, of necessity, implicate the Giddys. But there was no cure for it.
“Obviously,” she said, “it suggests a motive for Tom or Cindy Giddy to kill Ada Caffrey.” She said both their names, but she hoped Skelton would realize Cindy was the likelier suspect by far. “Ada Caffrey refused to sell, the Giddys wanted to sell, they were yoked to her by the way the deal was structured, and now she's dead.”
“Have you asked the Giddys about this? How do you know that they wanted to sell?”
“Well, for one thing, there's a âFor Sale' sign on their front
lawn,” Juliet blurted out. Too late, she realized what she had done.
lawn,” Juliet blurted out. Too late, she realized what she had done.
How foolishly arrogant she was. Not only had she refused to wait till Zoe could take care of all this for her, she had come down to the station in person, not even bothering beforehand to write down the information she wished to give. Such preparation, she had thought, was unnecessary for someone of her mental powers. Swish of the winding cloth as her undead bête noire left its coffin for a walk.
“Is there?” Skelton asked inevitably. “How do you know?”
Juliet could feel her face flush as she tried to reply, with dignity, that as a legatee of the deceased, she had gone up over the weekend to look over her bequest. And also to attend a memorial service for her late friend.
“That was very conscientious of you, Ms. Bodine,” said Detective Skelton, “especially since you're so busy.”
She glared at him. “I liked Ada Caffrey,” she spat out. Then, with an effort of will, she controlled her tone and spoke more calmly. “But that's neither here nor there. The point is, someone wanted to buy Ada's farm. You should talk to that person. And you should talk to anyone who stood to benefit if she had agreed to sell or suffer if she refused. Or suffer if she agreed,” she added abruptly, as it occurred to her that, whether they were responsible for the warning snake or not, Matt McLaurin and Free Earth would surely have been deeply opposed to Wildernessland, with its manipulative exploitation of “pristineness.”
In a few words, she told the detectives the story of the Fairground envoy and the copperhead.
“Free Earth may have wanted to make sure Ada didn't sell,” she finished up. “Or maybe they knew she had left the place to them and did plan to sell it themselves. Do plan to, I mean,” she corrected. “Fairground's offer still hasn't lapsed, you know. Free Earth might figure they can do more good with the money from Fairground than
Wildernessland would do evil. Or, who knows, Free Earth could be a scam, one of those cults that takes in devotees and strips them of their worldly goods.”
Wildernessland would do evil. Or, who knows, Free Earth could be a scam, one of those cults that takes in devotees and strips them of their worldly goods.”
It was a mixed satisfaction to her to see her listeners exchange slightly skeptical but interested glances. They hadn't done so apropos of the Giddysâbut the idea that environmentalists might be the villains seemed to appeal to them. She started to stand up, then sat down again.
“Oh, before I go, here are the poems that made me think someone was after her land,” she added. From her purse she pulled out copies of Ada's last two poems. “You can keep these.”
The detectives sat unmoving. Crowder looked at her, an elegant eyebrow arched like a circumflex accent above one eye.
“For crying out loud, it's a couple of poems. Just take a look at them. Please.”
They obliged, frowning over Ada's spiky, slightly shaky script. Juliet doubted either had looked at a poem since high school. It was as if she had handed them a couple of differential equations. After a minute or two, they looked back up at her. Detective Crowder's eyebrow was still raised.
Juliet tried to explicate. “See, they both describe a man, presumably a representative of Fairground, urging the writer, the âI' voice, to move off her land.”
“Mm-huh?”
“And you notice the dates? They were written just a few weeks before she died. This is what was on Ada Caffrey's mind.”
Jeff Skelton nodded. “So you see this as some kind ofâevidence?”
Juliet strained to disguise her impatience. “Look, a man is in her house, drinking a cup of coffee, talking to her. He's telling her to look ahead, she's not going to live forever. Why not sell the place, make a pile of dough, and bring some jobs into the neighborhood at the same time? But the writer, the speaker, she doesn't feel she's
going to die so soon. She tells him, this is my place, I'm not going anywhere. He gets upset, he tries to flatter her, persuade her ⦔
going to die so soon. She tells him, this is my place, I'm not going anywhere. He gets upset, he tries to flatter her, persuade her ⦔
“Mm. And then heâkills her?”
Now her impatience showed. “If he killed her, she wouldn't be able to write the poem,” she said. “It's justâoh, never mind.”
Juliet had more to say about the poems, especially “Landmine.” In fact, now that she was examining them again, there was something familiar aboutâAbout what? A memory glimmered in her mind, then fled down some neural pathway where she could not follow. Moments later, a second glimmer: the villanelle. Wasn't there something off about the structure?
But both nagging half-thoughts refused to surface fully. She stood up, shook the detectives' hands, and left the station feeling dirty. Ada Caffrey had liked Matt McLaurin. And she, Juliet, liked Tom Giddy. Still, if there were any chance either had been involved in Ada's death, it was surely right to point the police in their direction.
This dilute sense of righteousness had to suffice her for the next two days, during which she heard nothing from Skelton, Crowder, or Landis. Nor could she put her finger on what was bugging her about “Landmine,” despite repeated readings. But she did manage to make considerable headway in the memoirs of Harriette Wilson. Her reading of this lengthy workâthe complete edition, a copy of which she had ended up sending Ames over to Dennis's to borrow, ran to nine volumesâmight appear to an outsider as a sort of intellectual junket or boondoggle, she realized. But it was (she kept assuring herself) preparing her well to animate her new and improved Sir James, and therefore counted as legitimate research. Already, Clendinning had begun to write rather suggestive, carpe-diem-style verse (secretly, of course) to Selena. If Landis would turn up, Juliet's preparation would be even better.
But Landis, as he had warned her, did not.
By the time Juliet left her apartment to meet Dennis on
Wednesday evening, Catherine Walkingshaw had survived her near-disastrous brush with the bull and been put to bed, where Selena, much to Sir James's admiration and approval, was gently bathing her wounds while urging her to take a restorative spoonful or two of pork jelly. (The very sight of Selena in a bedroom inflamed Sir James's imagination to the extent that he dashed off a sestina.) Juliet set out for Les Routiers, the restaurant where she and Dennis had celebrated his birthday, feeling rather regretful that she had to leave
A New System of Domestic Cookery,
by A Lady, behind.
Wednesday evening, Catherine Walkingshaw had survived her near-disastrous brush with the bull and been put to bed, where Selena, much to Sir James's admiration and approval, was gently bathing her wounds while urging her to take a restorative spoonful or two of pork jelly. (The very sight of Selena in a bedroom inflamed Sir James's imagination to the extent that he dashed off a sestina.) Juliet set out for Les Routiers, the restaurant where she and Dennis had celebrated his birthday, feeling rather regretful that she had to leave
A New System of Domestic Cookery,
by A Lady, behind.
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