18 Deader Homes and Gardens (3 page)

“How very, very interesting,” she murmured, “but none of my business. Have you happened to see an elderly man wandering around? I’m afraid I’ve lost him.”

I gestured at the house behind me. “He found some wine and decided to take a nap on the sofa. I really need to make a phone call. Can you help me?”

Nattie glanced back at the house. “Let that old coot sleep it off where he is. He’ll show up for supper. Or he won’t, which is fine with me. You’re welcome to come home with me and use the phone.” She hesitated. “Are you going to call the police?”

“Actually, I am,” I said, “in that my husband’s the deputy chief of the Farberville Police Department. I need him to come pick me up. That way, he can have a look at the house. I hope he’ll be as excited as I am.” I would see that he was, if it meant we had to make love on the dining room table. And in the meadow, and again on silk sheets. Whatever personal sacrifices were necessary.

As we started walking in the direction of the paved road, she said, “I’d better warn you about your potential neighbors. I talk to my plants and read half a dozen fantasy novels a week, but I am by far the sanest of the lot—even though the petunias talk back. It may be a genetic flaw. Old Moses Ambrose Hollow was purported to be a drunken tyrant. He was acquitted of murder charges twice due to expeditious financial exchanges with judges and juries. Before he died, he ordered a bronze statue of himself to be placed in the area in front of the Old Tavern. It’s still there, since nobody in the family has the nerve to even suggest that we remove it. It gives me the creeps whenever I’m near it.”

“Because it might come to life?”

“Wait until you get a look at his seriously ugly face. The gargoyles at Notre Dame are a damn sight more handsome than he was. I doubt he’ll stumble down from his pedestal to terrorize the countryside and incite the peasants to riot and burn down the mill. No, I worry that a gust of wind will topple him when I’m too close.”

When we reached the pavement, I pointed at the road I’d noticed earlier. “Is that a driveway?”

“Yes, it leads to the Elysian Fields, where the wonders of nature are constrained only by the horizon,” Natty said. “It ends at the home of Ethan Hollow and his wife, Pandora Butterfly Saraswati. When they got married, Pandora changed her last name from Kumari.” She tried to contain her amusement, but her effort was less than convincing. “Kumari is the Hindu virgin goddess, you see, and Saraswati is the divine consort of Lord Brahma. I don’t think we should assume Pandora was a virgin, much less a virgin goddess. She and Ethan met at an ashram in Oregon.”

“So she’s a Buddhist named for Greek and Hindu goddesses? The theology seems a bit tangled,” I said as I tried to visualize a woman dressed in traditional garb from three religions, along with gold wings and a tinsel halo.

“She’s an egotistical flake,” Nattie replied, “but harmless. Her children, on the other hand, are vicious weasels. Pandora believes in allowing them to run free in order to expand their consciousness to become one with the universe, or some nonsense like that. Their names are Rainbow and Weevil. Don’t be fooled by their innocent smiles and guileless eyes. Remember the movie
Village of the Damned
?”

“I’ll watch out for them. What about Ethan?”

Nattie thought for a moment. “He was a rather ordinary boy until he went away to college. He got involved with a radical environmentalist group and dropped out of school to save whales and hug trees. When his parents died in a car crash, he showed up with long, greasy hair and grubby clothes and a contemptuous smirk. I noticed that he spent a lot of time talking to his uncle, Charles Finnelly. I later found out it was about the family business, although I don’t know the details. Six weeks after that, Ethan arrived with Pandora and they moved into what had been his parents’ house. That was seven years ago. Now he supervises the production end of the business, while Charles and Felicia handle the commercial side. Margaret Louise does the bookkeeping and all the paperwork concerning taxes, licenses, and employees’ paychecks. Hollow Valley Nursery is a big enterprise.” She pointed at an area of pine trees and undergrowth on the right side of the road. “The greenhouses are over that way, along with outbuildings, cold storage facilities, pumps, irrigation systems, and a garage. There are four delivery trucks, but they won’t be a bother because they use a road that leads east to some highway. HVN delivers to Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Five years ago Ethan and Charles decided to start a twenty-acre Christmas tree farm. The first harvest will be this season. Each year they’ve planted four acres of seedlings, so there will always be a fresh crop for Christmas. I suspect it will be very lucrative.” She picked up a rock and threw it in the direction of the greenhouses. “As if it matters anymore.” Her cackle splintered the bucolic serenity. Unable to respond, I kept my eyes on the pavement and cursed my cell phone’s untimely demise.

We turned left and continued up the road. I learned that the second driveway on the left led to the home of Felicia and Charles Finnelly, Felicia being the Hollow descendant. According to my guide, they were in their fifties, very conservative in matters of politics and religion, and tedious. “They both prance around like royals, looking down their snouts at those of us who are mere peasants. I keep waiting for them to whinny,” Nattie said. “Beyond their acreage is the green, if you will. Margaret Louise lives in the mill. The exterior is original, but the interior has been remodeled and has two bedrooms upstairs and a lovely sitting room. Presiding over the green is the Old Tavern, where Moses and I reside. It’s a dreary place, but I don’t have the energy to do anything about it. At night, I hear voices from the original taproom. Nasty, sullen voices. I keep my bedroom door locked and a shotgun next to my bed. There were dozens of murderous brawls over the years, and—”

She broke off as we caught sight of the statue in the middle of the green. Colonel Hollow had his bronze arm raised to send his troops into battle or to order pioneers to go west. The body dangling on a rope tied around his arm did not appear to be going anywhere soon.

2

Before I could so much as gasp, Nattie took off like a dog after a squirrel. A greyhound, to be more specific. I followed as fast as I could, although sprinting is not among my many talents. By the time I reached the grassy circle delineated by whitewashed stones, Nattie had her hands on her hips and was shouting, “Get down from there before I start paddling your fanny, young lady! We’ve had enough of your shenanigans! When I tell Ethan about this, he’ll have you planting seedlings for a month of Sundays!”

I looked more closely at the body dangling in the breeze. It proved to be that of a teenaged girl dressed in a skimpy blue shirt, denim shorts, and sandals. Her hair was shaved on the sides and stood up in bright purple spikes from her forehead to her nape. She seemed to have a fondness for body piercings; she had silver rings through both of her eyebrows and nostrils, her lower lip, and her navel. The tattoo visible above her waist was a purple dragon with black wings. Her makeup had been applied with vigor. Her eyes were outlined in black, and her lips were purple (to coordinate with her hair, I assumed).

“I mean it, Jordan!” Nattie continued. “Undo that rig right now. Do you realize you would have given Aunt Margaret Louise a heart attack if she found you like that?”

When Jordan raised her head to scowl, I could see that the noose did not go around her neck but merely under the back of her collar. She unbuttoned her shirt and slid her arms out of a harness made of rope. It looked dreadfully uncomfortable, I thought, ordering myself not to appreciate her ingenuity. “Yeah, yeah,” she said as she jumped off the pedestal and rubbed her armpits. “It was like a joke, okay? It’s so friggin’ boring out here that I decided to lighten things up. If Aunt Margaret Louise had a heart attack, at least we’d have some excitement. An ambulance, paramedic hunks, everybody screeching.” She gave me an appraising look, dismissed me as boring, and saluted the statue. “Good work, Mo, but you need to do something about that bird poop.”

“Put on your shirt, you fourteen-year-old hooligan!” Nattie said. “You’d better be here when Ethan and I get back. Or would you prefer to explain yourself to Uncle Charles?”

Jordan flopped down. “Like I care. Why don’t you go ahead and flog me right now—or better yet, send me home. Banish me for life from the hallowed Hollow Valley prison camp.”

Nattie shrugged. “Sorry, Claire, but I need to find Ethan. While he flogs Jordan, I’ll take you in the Old Tavern to make your call.”

“No problem,” I said without enthusiasm. There was little point in returning to my dream house in hopes that Angela eventually would remember where she’d left me. The only other option was to wait where I was, despite the proximity of a sulky teenaged girl with a macabre sense of humor. I’d had more experience with pubescent lunacy than I’d ever wanted to have—and then some. Caron and her colleague in crime, Inez Thornton, had stolen frozen frogs from the high school biology lab, been arrested while wearing gorilla suits, broken into a local celebrity’s house, and hidden an ancient Egyptian artifact in a hotel room closet. Peter’s intervention was the only reason they didn’t have rap sheets longer than those of Bonnie and Clyde.

“Who are you?” asked Jordan as she buttoned her shirt. “Did you come to this desolate place to buy potted plants? You’re too old to be buying pot plants.” She laughed merrily at her witticism. “Get it?”

It did not merit a reply. I looked up at Colonel Moses Ambrose Hollow, who was quite as ugly as Nattie had promised. He looked paunchy in his CSA coat, with beady eyes, bushy eyebrows, a beakish nose, and, below a droopy mustache, a scowl that mocked Jordan’s best efforts. The sculptor had been drunk, vicious, or brilliant.

“You didn’t come for the thrill of it,” Jordan said. “The only thing less exciting than watching grass grow is waiting for geraniums to wilt. I’m supposed to water them, but I always skip a few. Do you think they silently scream when a leaf falls off?”

“Beats me,” I said, having no desire to engage in conversation with someone whose idea of a joke was to fake a suicide (or a lynching). To the left of the green, there was a path that led to the old sawmill. The wheel towering behind it was at rest, unsurprising since the stream was lackadaisical. The window boxes were filled with blooms. The Old Tavern was more imposing, made of native stone with hewn wood door and window frames. The windows on both stories had heavy drapes. A bronze plaque beside the entrance asserted that it was built in 1868 and was of historical significance. I could easily envision horse-drawn wagons parked in the shade while logs were cut into planks and bewhiskered men guzzled whiskey inside the smoky tavern. There were no utility poles or satellite dishes in sight. A black Mercedes and a blue Mustang convertible parked under a tree were the only signs of the current century.

“Looks like a movie set, doesn’t it?” Jordan tried again. “All pretense, no substance. If you peeked around the corner, you’d see that the facades are two-dimensional, just like the people who live in them. Problem is, it’d be a really boring movie, since nothing ever happens. Next time I may put the noose around my neck.” She groaned for my benefit.

“All right,” I said, “go ahead and tell me whatever it is that’s ruining your life.” I sat down on a stone bench and gave her a bright smile. Since Caron’s life was ruined weekly because of a pimple or a spat with her first-ever boyfriend, I may not have sounded overly sympathetic.

“Well, I was forced to come here against my will. They almost had to put me in a straitjacket. The people here treat me like, you know, a slave. They’re all the time ordering me to work in the fields, plant seeds, or even hose down the floors in the greenhouses. I barely get anything to eat, and I have to get up at like six in the morning. Aunt Margaret Louise won’t let me watch any of my TV shows because she says they’re vulgar. If she catches me on my cell, she like takes it away. No matter where she hides it, I always find it.”

“Do you have it with you?” I asked optimistically.

Jordan snorted. “No, it’s in the top dresser drawer in her bedroom. She took it away last night, and this morning decided that she had the sniffles and needed to stay in bed all day. I mean, who cares about the friggin’ sniffles! She carried on like ‘the sniffles’ lead to pneumonia or the plague. When I took her a cup of tea, I thought she was asleep, so I happened to glance in her drawer. She squawked like a turkey.” She lay down and stared at the sky. “But why should you care? Nobody else does.”

“I didn’t say I did care. All I want to do is make a call so someone will come pick me up. As for this slavery nonsense, there are no welts on your back, and you’re hardly emaciated. Furthermore, I don’t think jokes about slavery are amusing.”

“I’m not fat!” Jordan squeaked.

I gazed at her. “No, you’re normal, except for the hair, the tattoo, and the piercings. This current fad of self-disfiguration will be replaced by some other madness, and your look will be passé. Your hair will grow out and you can cover the tattoo, but you’ll have facial scars forever. Explaining them away will be very boring indeed.” I glanced down the road, hoping to see Angela’s shiny silver SUV. I toyed with the idea of reporting her to some licensing bureau for real estate malfeasance, but then rejected it because I did want the house, the library, the terrace, the pool, the orchard, and the idyllic meadow. Feeling better, I said to Jordan, “Were you kidnapped by gypsies, who dumped you here when they could no longer bear your charming company?”

“I wish. No, my parents made a deal with Aunt Margaret Louise to make me stay here all summer. They think I’m like incorrigible. If I am, why do they think some doddery old lady can fix me in three months?” She plucked a few blades of grass and let them blow away. “Maybe I am incorrigible. I mean, all they do is yell at me and ground me for weeks at a time. Wanna know what they’re going to do in September?” She did not give me a chance to respond with a firm denial. “Send me to some all-girls boarding school in Maine. Whoopee. They wear uniforms and go to chapel every morning. If I’m a good girl the first semester, the spring semester I’ll be able to leave the campus on Saturday afternoons for all of four hours. The next year, I get to go to a mixer every month and hang out with pimply morons from a military school. Punch, cookies, and chaperones.” She made a face not unlike that of the Hollow clan’s progenitor.