Better Homes and Hauntings (23 page)

“You can hardly blame him. The woman he loved died suddenly. And there was probably a bit of guilt, since her husband killed her over their affair. He may not have wanted to work again just because of the associations with Catherine.”

“Do any of the letters say anything helpful?” Cindy asked, eager to break the somber mood. “Like, ‘Gerald told me to meet him at the top of the stairs at nine
P.M.
so he can strangle me?”

“Now, that would be too easy,” Dotty huffed, carefully slipping the letter back into its aging yellow envelope. “Everything here—the letters, the diaries, the artifacts—they’re pieces of the puzzle. I just have to find a way to make them fit.”

“In the meantime, you do look rather fabulous in that satellite-sized hat,” Cindy told her.

Dotty preened, putting on a brave, bright face. “Of course, I do, darling. I’m a Whitney.”

NINA WAS LOOKING
forward to her day, planting an array of annuals timed for different seasons, so that the beds would display different patterns and designs throughout the year. She loved the sturdy elegance of tulips and Johnny-jump-ups mixed with daffodils, which would give way to fiery splashes of snapdragons and poppies.

Ghostly issues aside, Nina was pretty content. She’d deposited Deacon’s latest check, which allowed her to pay off the last of her remaining Rick debts. This made her bank account solvent for the first time in months. She immediately paid several outstanding personal bills online, paid off her credit cards, and rewarded the patience of the lovely folks at the garden center, who had floated her supplies for the last year.

She had no bills due from that very moment until the next payment from Deacon’s office. She even had a
little money to spare. She could buy herself something she
wanted
instead of the bare necessities. She could buy
shoes . . .
assuming that she managed to get off the island to a shoe store. She would never be able to thank Deacon enough for the difference he’d made in her life. If she had any success as a business owner, it would be as a result of his generosity. She felt a little weird, accepting money from someone she’d committed greenhouse frottage with, but she also knew that wasn’t why Deacon had hired her. She knew she’d earned her place here. He wanted her on the job because she’d been clever and creative in her approach. She belonged here. Making out on the greenhouse floor was just a delightful side benefit.

On the slightly less normal side, she’d spent the previous evening updating her “ghost journal,” something Dotty now insisted that they do at the end of every day. Even if the journal entry was “Nothing to report,” Dotty wanted it documented. She knew Cindy occasionally made up entries, such as “Visited by the ghost of Elvis—may or may not be bearing his love child,” but Nina tried to be as honest as possible. After all, poor Dotty was the only one in the group who hadn’t had so much as an ominous goose bump. So Nina dutifully maintained her Diary of the Weird. Even if it was just a vague impression, like the time she thought she saw a pale, angry face pressed against the common-room window out of the corner of her eye, she wrote it down. She did, however, add a notation of “Probably my imagination” to these entries.

While Cindy maintained her surface sarcasm, she confided in Nina that she’d taken up her own “independent
study” to try to find some evidence that Catherine and Gerald had shared some sort of affection during their marriage. Like Nina, Cindy had noticed Dotty’s growing despair at the character sketch she was developing for Catherine—frustrated, lonely, increasingly bitter, and easily drawn into adultery. They both feared that this would lead to waning enthusiasm for the book project and that Dotty would eventually drop it, as she had dropped so many projects before.

Dotty needed to see a project through to completion. Nina was sure it would be good for her, that it would give her the confidence to get her floundering career on track. Dotty was a fabulous person and an even better friend, but she needed direction. And Nina believed it was good for Deacon to have his cousin around, as much as he protested. If Dotty didn’t complete the book project, Nina wasn’t sure that their relationship would survive Deacon’s
I told you so
s. The family connection left both of them too raw to survive much teasing.

So while Dotty was sunning herself on a nearby towel, probably meditating on an image of finding Catherine’s jewels or the final diary, Cindy sat on a stone bench, watching Nina plant her bulbs and reading through a few of the copied newspaper clippings and book excerpts her librarian friends had e-mailed the day before.

Nina suddenly stopped and looked up. “Wait, Gerald and Catherine only had two kids, right?”

Dotty nodded. “Gerald Junior and Josephine. They were sent to live with a distant aunt after their father died. By the time Gerald Junior was old enough to
inherit the family business, it had already died a slow, painful death. He tried starting his own company, a munitions plant. He earned a government contract at the beginning of World War Two, and it looked like the family fortune might be rebuilt, but there were problems with the pig iron he was using, and the shells fell apart in the field. The government snatched the contract back faster than you could say ‘barely escaped treason charges.’ The plant was closed within a year. Josephine made her debut in Philadelphia. The aunt tried to introduce her into society, pretending nothing had changed. But Josephine didn’t want any part of it. She was married quietly to the son of a family who owned a textile mill. But eventually, that family’s fortunes failed as well. Josephine’s husband died before they could have kids. And Gerald Junior and his wife had two children. His son was our grandfather.”

“So how did you end up with so many long-lost cousins?”

“Distant second and third cousins from Gerald’s line. They’re not actually descended from Gerald and Catherine, but their fortunes were tied to his business ventures. So they suffered the same fate as the other Whitneys. Bankruptcy, desperation, pawning everything in sight. And they’re not particularly pleased with Deacon’s suddenly striking it rich. You wouldn’t believe how they came out of the woodwork after his stock offering, reminding him of all the good times the family had at reunions and holidays, how they’d always believed he was something special. And then subtly informing him that their kid was starting college or that the mortgage on their house was past
due. He felt so good about making his fortune that he wrote checks to the first few, and that started a sort of feeding frenzy. He had to start saying no, and when he did, it just got worse. Lawsuits, break-ins here at the house, the sense of entitlement and jealousy. It was overwhelming.”

“But if all of these other cousins aren’t direct descendants of Gerald Whitney, they couldn’t have a claim on the house, right?”

“Of course, they don’t, but that doesn’t keep fringe relatives like our great-uncle Phillip from claiming that the idea of changing the house causes him deep personal distress. The court won’t take him seriously, but filing the injunction—which he has done twice—will cause legal complications for Deacon and possibly delay construction. And he expects Deacon to cough up a few ducats to make ‘the problem’ go away.”

“Will Deacon pay him?” Cindy asked.

“I don’t know. He was awfully annoyed at having to pay him last time.”

Nina shook her head sadly. “Poor Deacon.”

Dotty smirked. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”

“It’s just that everybody seems to want something from him. It’s sad. It’s like being the most popular kid in your class because you have a cupcake in your lunchbox. Pretty soon, the cupcake is gone, and you find out that nobody really liked you in the first place.”

Cindy smiled brightly. “If you make that comparison to Deacon’s face, I will give you a shiny nickel.”

Nina tossed a clump of grass at Cindy, who ducked out of the way. “Not a chance, you career ruiner.”

“Oh, here’s something. Jennifer sent over pictures
from the Whitneys’ first party here on the island, just after the house was completed,” Cindy called to Dotty.

“It was their first and only party. Catherine was dead within a month,” Dotty responded, not bothering to move from her comfortable position.

“So what happened at the party?” Nina asked as she raked a small section of dirt clear and prepped it for planting.

“It started off really well,” Cindy answered, flipping through the carefully printed sheets. “It was a fairy-garden theme. Thanks to Mrs. Vanderbilt’s costume parties, everybody was more than happy to dress up. Women showed up dressed as dryads and nymphs. The men sort of cheated and just wore masks with their tuxedos. Catherine had arranged for photographers to take the guests’ portraits as they arrived, so they would be able to capture the costumes before they could be mussed.” She showed the others some copied photos of stiff, bored-looking women in cellophane fairy wings. “This was a good time to you people?”

“Even when you’re talking about the rich white sector of the population, I’m pretty sure ‘you people’ is considered offensive,” Dotty told her.

Cindy frowned. “I will send you some lovely apology flowers.”

“And yes, believe it or not, these women were probably having the time of their lives. Portraits were just a lot more formal then. They weren’t encouraged to smile.”

Dotty finally dragged her butt off her towel and crawled over to examine the photos.

“I’ve read about this. It was a very swanky do. Champagne from Paris and sweets from Switzerland. If guests
arrived without costumes, they were immediately directed to a spare bedroom suite, where Catherine had hired seamstresses to fit them in a selection of very chic theme-appropriate frocks. Catherine had even arranged for acrobats to dangle from trapezes bolted into the ceiling of the ballroom.”

“She let someone drill bolt holes into her brand-new ceilings?” Cindy asked.

“No, she arranged for the bolts to be built into the ceiling in the first place.”

“She planned the theme that far ahead?”

Dotty shrugged. “She took this party very seriously. She knew that her future as a respected hostess among the very rich depended on a successful evening. Also, the plan was that she would hang chandeliers from the bolts later.”

Cindy grumbled. “Rich people.”

“Stop it.” Nina poked her in the ribs.

Dotty slid her sunglasses on top of her head and sorted through Cindy’s papers. “OK, so they’re socializing in the foyer, in front of the grand staircase. Dinner is served, prepared by a fantastic French chef Catherine had lured from some upstart social-climbing family in New York. The dancing started, but Catherine had disappeared. This was unheard of. The hostess always led the first dance. It was quite the scandal.

“Gerald excused himself to go look for her. Several guests insisted they heard shouting from the garden, and a very pale Catherine rejoined the party to lead the dancing. Gerald wasn’t seen for the rest of the night. The party never quite got back into swing, and the guests left early. It was reported in society pages to be
‘one of the most uncomfortable evenings of the year.’ Catherine was said to be devastated.”

“So Catherine had the bad taste to leave her own party and meet her lover in the garden, and her husband caught her?” Nina asked.

“Sounds like it.”

Cindy pursed her lips. “But Jack Donovan wasn’t at the party. It says here in this gossip-column clipping, ‘Notably absent from the disastrous soiree was Jack Donovan, the architect of this marvel of modern domestic engineering. Several guests were overheard stating that Mr. Donovan was not invited.’ So she couldn’t have been meeting Donovan in the garden.”

“A second lover?” Nina suggested, eyeing Dotty carefully.

“No offense, Dotty, your great-great-grandmama was sort of a skank,” Cindy marveled, wincing when Nina whacked her in the shoulder.

“Maybe,” Dotty said, sliding her sunglasses back into place. “A few weeks later, Catherine disappeared. There was a frantic search, and then her body was found in the bay. Gerald insisted that when he arrived on the island, Catherine was nowhere to be found. The police insisted that he must have arrived earlier, killed Catherine, and then made a big show of arriving at the house and looking for her. Maybe Gerald was just pushed too far. First, Catherine takes up with the architect, and then, a few weeks later, it looks like she has someone else, too? Maybe that was more than Gerald could take.” Dotty swiped at the hot tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

“You OK, hon?” Cindy asked, rubbing her arm.

Dotty nodded, pasting on a smile. “I’m going to get something to drink,” she said, her voice shaking as she stood and dusted off her cutoff shorts. “You girls want anything?” She didn’t wait to hear their answer, taking off across the lawn.

Nina turned on the blonde. “You’ve got to stop making fun of rich people, Cindy.”

Cindy gave an apologetic shrug. “Old habits die hard.”

DOTTY SAT ON
the foot of her bed, her headphones firmly clamped over her ears. She hadn’t been able to rejoin the others for the rest of the afternoon, not even for dinner. She needed some alone time, which was spent scanning the recording of her talking to the girls in the attic. She’d listened to it at half-speed. She’d listened to it on fast-forward, making them all sound like chipmunks. And she hadn’t heard one single syllable beyond their own conversation. Not an ominous groan. Not a menacing whisper. No guttural
Get out
. Nothing.