Stabbing Stephanie (8 page)

“No!” Rhoda chimed in. “But the commission will sure pay off a lot of Jane's mortgage!”

“Amen to that!” Jane said, and everyone laughed.

Ginny said, “I believe Faith Carson does publish books about famous people. You know, memoirs, autobiographies, biographies. People she's connected to . . . people she knows from society.”

“Right,” Louise said, “the way Jacqueline Onassis did when she was an editor at Doubleday.”

Doris made that disgusted noise again. “Mm, she published such society figures as Michael Jackson. You remember his classic,
Moonwalk?
I
read
that book,” she announced, as if bragging that she'd dug a twelve-foot ditch. “What a piece of dreck.” She began purling wildly. “Jacqueline Onassis,” she said with contempt. “Another one. No better than a common whore, marrying that ugly old Onassis—”

“Jane,” Louise broke in, and when Jane looked at her, her expression was one of horror. “You're the best knitter here. Could you help me turn the heel of this sock? I've been trying for the last half hour, and I just can't seem to get the hang of it.”

“Of course, Louise,” Jane said, giving her a knowing smile, and as Jane took Louise's knitting from her, they both slid a glance at Doris, who appeared to have withdrawn into her work, at least for the moment.

 

 

“Hello, missus.” Florence, in white robe and slippers, carrying a hardcover book, descended the stairs to the foyer as Jane entered the house. “You've had a phone call. Your cousin Stephanie.”

Jane winced. “Please don't call her that. She's my late husband's cousin, not mine.”

“Oh. Sorry, missus. Why don't you like her?”

Jane glanced sharply at her. “Who says I don't like her? I barely know her.”

Florence shrugged. “You've met her twice, you said. At your wedding, and at Mr. Stuart's funeral. But it's very clear you don't care for her, if you don't mind my saying so.”

Jane hung up her coat. “I don't suppose I did like her—at least not from those two meetings. But you know how things are. Once she's here I'm sure I'll get to know her better, think she's positively marvelous, and wonder how I could ever have thought such things about her.”

Florence looked dubious. “Maybe, missus. Anyway, she called to remind you that she'll be arriving late tomorrow morning. She'll call your office from the train station, as you and she worked out.” Her face grew dreamy and she showed Jane the book in her hand. On its jacket was a close-up photograph of a lovely, creamy-skinned young woman with unusually large violet eyes, long pale lashes, and a mass of lustrous light brown hair brushed back from her strong forehead.
Queen of Heaven,
the title read, and at the bottom:
Faith Carson
.

“Where did you get that?” Jane asked.

“At the library this afternoon. I felt I should brush up on details.”

Jane had to laugh. “Florence, it's Stephanie Townsend who'll be staying here, not Faith Carson.”

“I know that, missus. But your cousin—oops, I mean Stephanie
is
one of Faith Carson's best friends, and Faith Carson will be working right here in the village. Why, I might bump into her at the 7-Eleven!”

“Somehow I doubt it. How's the book?” Jane led the way through the family room into the kitchen, where she filled the kettle and put it on the stove. “Tea?”

“Yes, thank you, missus.” Florence and Jane sat down at the kitchen table. “The book is fascinating,” Florence said. “You really should read it. I'll give it to you as soon as I finish.”

“Thanks.” Jane gave a small polite smile.

“The title comes from the fact that many travelers to Ananda—that's the country Faith and the king ruled—said it was the closest place on earth to heaven. High in the Himalayas, a palace among the clouds . . .”

Oh brother,
Jane thought. “You're really into this,” she observed. “What else does it say?”

“I haven't read much yet; I've only just started it. Right now she's still at Wellesley College and she's met the prince, who is studying at the same time at Harvard. She thinks she's in love with him. And look at this,” Florence said, opening the book to a photo insert in the middle. “Here's a picture from the wedding. So beautiful!”

She spun the book around and pushed it across the table to Jane. The photo was of Faith in her wedding gown with a voluminous train, and beside her stood Stephanie Townsend herself, smiling brightly. This Stephanie was young and fresh, far different from the thin, tired-looking Stephanie Jane remembered from Kenneth's funeral. But then, Jane reflected, Faith and Ravi's wedding had taken place eighteen years earlier.

Winky leapt onto the table and promptly sat down on the book.

“Winky! Shoo, shoo!” Florence gently pushed her away, then closed the book. Winky stepped down onto Florence's lap and curled up.

Jane shook her head in wonderment. “I must say I'm impressed at your thoroughness, reading up on our guest. Fill me in on what it says about her, will you? In case I don't get to read it right away.”

“Of
course,
missus.” Florence raised her slim shoulders and giggled. “This is going to be such great fun!”

Jane nodded, at that moment actually beginning to believe this.

But by morning, this feeling had completely abandoned her. Nick, however, seemed to have caught the excitement bug from Florence.

“Come on, Mom, she's my
cousin!”
he pleaded in the car on the way to school. “It would be rude if I didn't meet her at the station with you.”

“Nice try,” Jane said, turning the car into the drive in front of Hillmont School, “but I'm not even meeting her train. She's going to call me at the office when she gets in.”

“Meanie,” Nick grumbled, getting out of the car and heaving his backpack onto his back.

“We'll have a special dinner to welcome her tonight,” Jane told him. She had already discussed this idea with an enthusiastic Florence. “Good-bye, darling. Have a wonderful day. I love you.”

Nick just slammed the car door, turned, and started toward the school building. With a shrug, Jane pulled away from the curb and headed for the village center.

When she walked into the office, she found Daniel looking troubled.

“What's up?” she asked him.

“When I got here this morning there was a police car out in front of the office.” He gestured toward the front door. “I realized it was Greenberg and that he was talking to Ivor, asking him to move on.”

Jane frowned. “Really?”

“Yes. I spoke with Greenberg. He told me Ivor spent the night in front of our door, on the sidewalk.”

Surprise and sadness overcame her. “We have got to help him. It was freezing cold last night. I wonder why he didn't sleep in the train station as usual.”

“Maybe he'd had too much to drink and passed out here,” Daniel ventured.

“Maybe.” But she remembered the callous things Rhoda had said about Ivor at the Defarge Club meeting the previous night and it crossed her mind that someone might have told Kevin, the train station's custodian, to lock the waiting room to keep Ivor out. Who could be that cruel?

“No one should have to sleep outside in the winter. There's got to be someplace he can go for a bed and hot meals.”

Daniel chewed his lower lip. “Shady Hills has never had much need for homeless shelters or soup kitchens. Perhaps I could help him . . .”

In the spring, Daniel's father, Cecil Willoughby, the founding owner of
Onyx,
the world's leading magazine for African-Americans, had died, leaving Daniel quite wealthy. One would never have guessed this from Daniel's appearance or behavior, which had not changed in the slightest since his change of fortune. In fact, this was the first time Jane could remember hearing him refer even obliquely to his newfound wealth.

“That's not what he needs,” she said. “He needs to be helped back onto his own two feet, given work and a sense of self-esteem, so that he can take care of himself again. And,” she added sadly, “he needs help for his alcoholism.”

“How do we know he doesn't need psychiatric treatment as well? I believe transients often do.”

“That may be. For now, though, I'm going to work on the basics—shelter, soup kitchen, that kind of thing. There must be towns around here that have these.”

She spent the first hour of her day at her desk studying a contract she'd just received from Silhouette for three romances by Pam Gainor. She jotted some notes, then set the contract aside to be gone over again later; she always looked over contracts at least twice, so she wouldn't miss anything.

She took the manuscript of
The Blue Palindrome
from her briefcase and set it on her desk. She was about three-quarters of the way through. By now she was certain she would offer to represent this man, whoever he was. He was a remarkable talent. She would finish quickly so as not to waste any more time. She didn't want to lose this one.

A few minutes after eleven, Daniel buzzed her. “Stephanie on one.”

“Ugh.” She forced her mouth into a big smile and picked up the phone. “Stephanie! Are you here?”

“Yes!” came Stephanie's nasal voice. “Can you believe it? Me—right here in your little burg. Isn't it priceless?”

A
t one corner of the village green, Center Street veered off on a curving route to the Shady Hills train station. Walking along this road, her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets against the cold, Jane crossed the station's parking lot and approached the station building, thinking of Ivor.

There was no one around. Frowning a little in puzzlement, Jane climbed the five steps to the platform and went inside the building. There, on one of the shiny dark high-backed benches of the waiting room, sat Stephanie, staring straight ahead, her back rigid, her hands placed decorously in her lap. Hearing the door, she turned her head, saw Jane, and gave the slightest hint of a smile. Then she rose, at the same time taking up the handle of a large black suitcase.

“Jane,
dar
ling,” she said dramatically, and trotted toward Jane on high heels.

Jane put out her arms for the hug she figured Stephanie expected, but Stephanie just put her cheek forward, so Jane did likewise.

Stephanie looked far better suited to Boston or New York City than to Shady Hills. She wore a full-length black mink coat that Jane could tell was of the highest quality. Expensive black shoes, black cashmere gloves. She wasn't a bad-looking woman, Jane reflected. Nice clear skin, her features bold if perhaps rodentlike. She wore her hair, a harsh black, in a stiff old-fashioned pageboy. Jane knew Stephanie to be only four years older than Jane's thirty-nine, still a young woman, yet there was a dated quality about her, as if her fashion sense had died in the early seventies, or as if she'd never bothered with fashion at all, opting for the “classic” look instead.

“Welcome to Shady Hills,” Jane said. “You're looking well, Stephanie.”

“You, too,” Stephanie said in her nasal drawl. “Love your hair! Was it this color at Ken's funeral?”

Ken. No one—not even a special, privileged relative—had ever been allowed to call Kenneth Ken. Jane decided to ignore this, and hoped that by her own continued use of
Kenneth
she could convey the message that this was how her late husband had preferred to be addressed.

“Yup, same old hair,” Jane said. “Here, let me take your bag.” She bent and searched for a retractable handle.

“What are you looking for?”

“A handle? Wheels?”

Stephanie looked at her in bafflement, then pointed to a small handle at the top of the case. “Handle!”

“Right,” Jane said with a polite laugh, picked up the bag, and let out a loud grunt. It could have been full of rocks.

“Heavy?” Stephanie asked, strolling along after Jane.

“A bit.” Jane wondered if she should get the car, then rejected this idea. Her office wasn't that far away.

“All of my worldly possessions, as it were,” Stephanie said melodramatically.

Jane stopped and look at her. “All your things are in this suitcase?”

“Mm-hm,” Stephanie said with a happy nod. “Live light, as my Uncle Mike always said. He was Ken's father—my mother's brother—but you know that.”

“Yes. What about your furniture, your . . . stuff?”

“Stuff? I've always lived in furnished rooms, so I've never had furniture to lug around. As for clothes, I go in for a few good classic pieces. And I loathe knickknacks and such. So everything I own in the world, you hold in your hand!”

Jane hadn't remembered this dramatic streak in Stephanie, but then, she'd only met her twice, briefly, under hectic circumstances. Feeling her face redden with exertion, her hand, wrist, and back aching, she led the way along Center Street, turned left onto the sidewalk that led to her office, and stopped at the agency's front door. “Here we are.”

Stephanie regarded the plaque beside the door. “I love it.” Then her face grew sad. “This was where you worked with Ken?”

“Yes.” Jane pushed open the door. “Come in; I'll introduce you to Daniel.”

Daniel, who had obviously heard them coming, suddenly opened the door and bent to help Jane with Stephanie's bag. Then, smiling warmly, he greeted Stephanie and put out his hand. She hesitated for the merest fraction of a second before taking it.

“Stephanie Townsend,” Jane said, “I would like you to meet my dear friend—and my treasured assistant—Daniel Willoughby.”

“How do you do,” Stephanie said with a tiny smile, then withdrew her hand and looked around. “This really is quite sweet,” she said, putting the drawl on
sweet
.

“Would you like the grand tour?” Jane said jokingly.

“No, some other time perhaps.” Stephanie stood at the window that looked out on the green, peering out. Jane shot Daniel a suffering look. He responded with a wide-eyed stare of alarm.

“All righty, then,” Jane said. “Why don't we go for some lunch? I'll just grab some work—I'm not sure if I'll be back today,” she told Daniel. She headed into her office, put
The Blue Palindrome
into her briefcase along with some contracts and book proposals, and carried the briefcase and her bag out to the reception area. “All right, ready?”

Stephanie gave a small restrained smile.

“We'll go out the back way,” Jane said. “My car is parked there.”

“Allow me,” Daniel said, lifting Stephanie's suitcase with a grunt, and followed the two women out to the parking lot. Jane opened her trunk and he placed the suitcase inside.

“Pleasure to meet you, Stephanie,” he said.

Again she gave him a tiny smile, but made no response. She and Jane got in the car as Daniel went back inside.

“He's a marvel,” Jane said, starting the engine and backing out of her parking space. “A dear young man.”

“And a Negro,” Stephanie observed brightly.

Jane's head snapped sideways and she stared at Stephanie. “I don't believe I've heard that word in thirty years.”

Stephanie simply stared back, as if waiting for Jane to make a point. “He is quite handsome,” she said at last.

Jane slammed on the brakes. Remembering to smile, she said, as calmly as she could, “Listen, Stephanie, we'd better get one thing straight right now. When it comes to people, I don't see in color. Daniel is my friend. Period. Heaven knows I have my faults, but racism isn't one of them. If you are a racist—and it seems you are—keep it to yourself... or you will quickly be without a relative in Shady Hills.”

Stephanie just gaped at her. “I—I—”

“And I've got another surprise for you,” Jane went on. “Daniel happens to be the richest person I know. How do you like that? He has more money than you and I put together—maybe even more money than your friend Faith Carson.”

“But how?”

Jane gave her head a little shake. “Doesn't matter. The point is that if Daniel wanted to, he could look right down that handsome nose at you, because you haven't got his money and never will. But Daniel won't do that, because that's not the kind of person he is, which is why I love him so dearly. So!” she said, steering the car onto Packer and past the municipal parking lot toward the railroad crossing. “Are we clear on that issue?”

“Quite,” Stephanie said coolly, her gaze fixed out the window at the trees.

“Good. Then we can start again.” She turned and gave Stephanie her biggest, warmest smile. “Let's go home and have some lunch.” Suddenly she had a thought. “Oh—I'd better tell you. Florence, my son's nanny and our housekeeper . . . she's Trinidadian. Another person I love dearly. She's the one who's busy making our lunch, by the way.”

Stephanie nodded, her expression cold, and drummed cashmered fingers softly on the console between their seats.

Feeling a headache coming on, Jane crossed the tracks.

This wasn't going to be easy.

 

 

“Pretty town,” Stephanie said, her first words since Jane had confronted her.

“Yes, it is,” Jane said pleasantly. Her head pounded more fiercely than ever; even turning her head slightly caused her pain. She turned off Grange onto Lilac Way and started up the hill toward her house. “This is my street.”

“Ah,” Stephanie said, taking in the spacious homes nestled among the trees—a majestic Tudor, a sprawling Colonial, a comfortable porch-wrapped Victorian. She turned to Jane. “I'm sorry for what I said. You must think me an awful person.”

Surprised, Jane looked at her. These were the last words she'd expected. “I appreciate your apology and, no, I don't think you're an awful person.” She patted Stephanie's gloved hand. “Let's start again.”

“Deal,” Stephanie said, and more animated now, continued, “It's nice to be visiting you under happier circumstances than last time.”

Jane felt a shadow pass over her at the memory of Kenneth's funeral. But she knew Stephanie hadn't meant to sadden her. “True,” Jane said, and wiped a tear from her eye.

“If you don't mind my asking, are you . . . seeing someone?”

“Yes,” Jane replied brightly, “I am, as a matter of fact. A wonderful man named Stanley Greenberg. He's a police detective, right here in Shady Hills.”

“I love it,” Stephanie said, as if Jane had selected Stanley's occupation for him.

Jane turned into her driveway. “And this is my house. Do you remember it?” She and Kenneth had held their wedding reception in the side yard, under a massive white tent. Eight years later, Jane had invited mourners back to the house for refreshments after Kenneth's funeral.

“I certainly do remember it.” Stephanie gazed out the windshield at the house against its backdrop of blue-green pines. “Such a pretty place.”

Jane agreed. She loved this house, would never leave it. It had been hers and Kenneth's.

They got out and Jane heaved Stephanie's suitcase from the trunk. Stephanie carried Jane's bag and briefcase, and they started up the short path to the front door.

“Thank you for being so welcoming, Jane. I really appreciate it.”

“Don't be silly,” Jane said, turning toward her as she started up the steps. “You're family.” She unlocked the front door and led the way into the foyer. Delicious savory smells filled the house.

“Mm, someone's cooking,” Stephanie said.

“Yes, Florence, as I told you.” Jane helped Stephanie out of her mink. She stroked the dark lustrous fur. “If you don't mind my saying so, this is some coat.” Carefully she placed it on a padded hanger and hung it in the closet.

“Thanks,” Stephanie said, and suddenly gave Jane a suggestive look, lifting one eyebrow. “You have no
idea
what I had to do to get that coat.”

Jane, unsure how to respond to this, hesitated.

“Hello, hello!” Florence, saving the day, bustled into the foyer from the family room.

Jane introduced the two women to each other.

“It is a true pleasure to meet you,” Florence said.

Jane was pleased that Florence hadn't said anything about Stephanie's being Faith Carson's friend. But from the fire in Florence's eyes, Jane knew that was exactly what Florence was thinking about. Jane hung up her own coat and they all went into the dining room, where Florence had set a lavish table. In the center was a large basket that Florence had filled with gourds of all shapes and sizes, bright orange and yellow and green.

“This is lovely, Florence,” Jane said.

“Yes,” Stephanie said, taking a seat. “Pure Norman Rockwell.”

“Norman who?” Florence frowned.

“What a nice compliment,” Jane said lightly. “Florence, I'll help you serve.”

Jane followed Florence into the kitchen. On the stove was a big pot of soup. Jane looked in and saw cabbage and carrots and pasta shells in a thick tomato broth. “This smells heavenly.”

“Missus,” Florence whispered, coming up close to her. “Your cousin—I mean Mr. Stuart's cousin—what do you think of her?”

Jane shot her a look. There was no fooling Florence. “Not much so far, to be honest,” Jane said softly. “But we have to be nice; we have to look for the good qualities.”

“Why?” Florence looked puzzled.

“Because,” Jane said patiently, “she's family. Now, what can I do?”

Florence had also made salad and a quiche. She and Jane carried these into the dining room. Then Florence carried out bowls of soup on a tray.

Sitting down, Jane saw that the table was set for three. She considered Florence one of the family and would never have thought twice about her joining Jane and her company for lunch, but after the conversation Jane and Stephanie had had in the car about Daniel, Jane wondered how this would strike Stephanie. Not that it mattered.

Jane watched Florence finish passing soup bowls and then take her seat, a big smile on her pretty face. Stephanie was watching Florence, her eyebrows slightly raised.

“Well!” Florence said with a satisfied sigh. “I do hope this all came out as planned.” She opened her napkin, placed it in her lap, and looked up to find Stephanie staring at her.

“Stephanie,” Jane said in an effort to distract her, “I think it's so exciting, your coming here for a new job—a new life, really. I hope things work out well for you. It could be such fun.”

Stephanie seemed to be having trouble wresting her gaze from Florence. Jane could just imagine what she was thinking:
The help eats with the family,
or some such. Well, that was just too bad for snobby, racist Stephanie—cousin or no cousin. In fact, as far as Jane was concerned, the sooner this cousin was out of the house, the better.