A Skeleton in the Closet (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) (17 page)

Margo’s eyes went flat as she looked out the window and remembered. “I was nineteen, the summer between my freshman and sophomore years at Emory.”

“You went to Emory University?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

Margo shot me a look. “Are you saying that it’s not possible to be gorgeous and brilliant, too? Hush, and let me get through this. I had a temporary job at the university bookstore. I had chosen to stay on campus for the summer to escape what I thought was my parents’ excessive interest in my social life.” She flashed me a grin that didn’t travel to her eyes. “Probably a bad choice, now that I think about it.

“Anyway, into the bookstore one day walked Robert Branham. He was twenty-six, just discharged from the U.S. Army. He had been a paratrooper in the 82
^nd
Airborne, all very
excitin
’, and just about as good
lookin
’ as it is possible for one man to be. I helped him find the textbooks for his summer classes, we got to
talkin
’, and …” She shrugged eloquently. “One thing led to another, and after a couple of weeks, nature took its course.” Again, the bleak stare out the window. “I know you won’t believe this, but Robert was my first.”

“You first what?
Oh!” I bristled at her assumption. “Why wouldn’t I believe that? You’ve always had, shall we say, a healthy sexual appetite, but come on, Margo. I know you far too well to think you were ever a slut. We all had our youthful indiscretions, but I hope none of us is the naïve little fool she was at nineteen years of age.”

Margo’s mouth twisted wryly. “You’ve got a point there, Sugar. So there I was in mid-August, two months gone and scared witless. It did not even occur to me to tell my parents.” She rolled her eyes at the idea. “Mama would simply have died from the shame of it, and Daddy …
well,
things would just never have been the same between us. He had to be able to think of his
darlin
’ daughter in a certain way, you know?”

I nodded slowly. I knew.

Margo gave herself a little shake and hurried on. “I won’t bore you with the details, but you will recall that abortion was illegal at that time, so I couldn’t go to a doctor. But Robert knew a registered nurse who helped girls like me out from time to time. She even let me stay at her apartment for a day or two afterward and supplied me with antibiotics to prevent an infection. Sally her name was. I remember that her cat had had a litter of kittens.”
Again, the sad smile.
“It really wasn’t at all horrific.
Just sort of surreal, like it was
happenin
’ to someone else entirely.
I went back to work on Monday with no ill effects at all. Physically, that is.”

I kept silent while she decided what else she wanted to say. “The thing is, what I needed to tell
Strutter
, is that there hasn’t been a week since then that I haven’t wondered if I did the right thing. It never goes away. In fact, my doubts get worse with each
passin
’ year. Oh, I forgave that frightened nineteen-year-old who didn’t think she had any other choice back then. But very soon after, and ever since, there’s been this feeling in my heart.” She pressed both hands to her breast and looked directly at me. “What if I hadn’t done it, Kate? What if I’d tried harder to find another answer? I might have a big,
strappin
’ son with his daddy’s good looks or a gorgeous, grown-up daughter with my
amazin
’ style and charm.” She made a self-deprecating face. “Wouldn’t that be
somethin
’?” she finished sadly.

I lost my struggle to keep my emotions at bay, and my eyes filled with tears. “But Margo, things were so different then. The social mores were determined by how our parents had been raised, and back then, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy would have shamed you and your family. You didn’t think you had a choice because you really
didn’t
have a choice, or not one that you could live with. Today, you would have a dozen options and would feel free to choose among them. But back then, you would have done anything in your power to avoid hurting your parents. I understand that completely.”

I stood up to give Margo a hug, but she waved me off lightly. “No, no, we’ll have none of that. I’ve already repaired my face once this
mornin
’. I just thought
Strutter
needed to hear what I just told you from someone who’s been through it before she rushes off to some clinic. And now you’ve heard it, too.”

She looked at her watch and leaped to her feet, scrambling as always to locate her discarded shoes. “I’ve got to get over to Vista Views again. I’m
fillin
’ in for
Strutter
today, but she’ll be along tomorrow. Rhett’s out back in the pen, so ask Jenny to keep an ear tuned, okay? You know how those squirrels love to taunt him. And Kate …” She stopped and gave me a rueful half-smile. “Don’t agonize for me, or for that matter, for
Strutter
. I’ve lived with my mistakes for a lot of years now, and I’ll go right on
livin
’ with them.
Strutter
has more choices than she thinks she has. She just needed that pointed out to her. She’ll be just fine, I know it.”

And for the second morning in a row, Margo ran up the stairs to the lobby and was gone, leaving me with one hell of a lot to think about.

* * *

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. In fact, the phone barely rang, giving me the entire afternoon to catch up on paperwork and send the morning’s swan photo to Emma via e-mail. Rain clouds darkened the sky in mid-afternoon, and I switched on my desk lamp to brighten the office. Looking up the half-stairway to the lobby, I saw that Jenny had done the same thing.

The cool rain continued to fall as I made my way home to The Birches that evening. It had become my habit to check my rearview mirror frequently for black vans, but the rain and the headlights in the early dusk made it impossible to pick out colors. I arrived at the condo without incident and activated the electric garage door opener with the programmed button on the
Altima’s
visor. Once again, I was grateful for the attached garage that sheltered me and the groceries I had bought on the way.

Armando had left work early to spend a couple of hours minimizing the remaining clutter on the first floor. By the time I let myself into the kitchen, I was pleased to see that the cartons that blocked cabinet doors had disappeared along with those that had been stacked in the hallway. I felt cheerful enough to call out, “Lucy, I’m ho-
ome
,” in my best
Desi
Arnaz
imitation as I set the green tote bag loaded with the makings of a spaghetti dinner on the table and went to hang my raincoat in the front hall closet, which was surprisingly tidy.

“Very funny.”
Armando leaned over the loft railing and blew me a kiss. “How was your day,
Cara
?”

“Why don’t you come down here, and I’ll tell you all about it?” I invited, smiling up at him. For perhaps the thousandth time in the five years I had known him, I was enchanted by his Latin good looks.

As I concocted pasta sauce and Armando assembled a big salad, I filled him on my tour of the
Henstock
house and my idea about turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. Throughout my recitation, he listened closely, as he always did when I spoke to him. Although his concentration was probably due partly to the fact that English was not his first language, I still found his attention charming and warmed to my story.

“That beautiful old house is really something. You wouldn’t believe how lovely some of the rooms are despite years of neglect. That wide, planked flooring and recessed windows, some of them with
windowseats
.
Straight out of a Jane Austen novel.
And the marble-tiled fireplaces in the bedrooms, most of them still functional.
Even the proportions of the rooms are appealing. And that ballroom on the third floor! I can just see a small wedding or a fundraising event, maybe a wine tasting. If that kitchen were updated, it could cater all sorts of parties, Armando. The possibilities are endless, and it’s right on the Broad Street Green, which gives it all sorts of historical appeal. It shouldn’t be too difficult to attract an interested investor, do you think?”

“It is a very interesting idea, but as the older Miss
Henstock
mentioned, there is the problem of the skeleton. What is happening in that regard?”

I repeated my theory that the mystery of the skeleton in the
Henstocks
’ basement would only heighten the public’s interest in the property.

“The public, yes.
The public always has an avid interest in such things, does it not? But potential investors might well be reluctant to put money into what amounts to a crime scene. What progress has been made in the investigation?”

We moved into the living room, where I opened the glass doors to the fireplace and put a match to the wood fire I kept
laid
in the grate, ready for an evening like this. The dry wood caught quickly, and bright flames quickly sprang to life. As if by magic, both cats materialized and settled onto the hearth rug. A fire in the fireplace was a top draw, second only to dinner being served.

“According to Margo, who gets her information from John
Harkness
, of course, the police have been unable to identify the body. As far as the medical examiner can determine, death occurred in the mid-1940s, and the body was walled up very soon thereafter. Notices have been published asking for information surrounding the disappearance of a forty-
ish
woman around that time, but so far, no one has come forward.”

I pulled the
firescreen
shut and adjusted the glass doors for maximum draw. “They’ve also drawn a blank on the plumber who found the body. The card he gave
Ada
turned out to be bogus. The phone number on it is no longer in service, and the company name on the account was fictional. John says they may never be able to close this case.”

I sank down onto the sofa next to Armando, whose arm automatically lifted to make room for me next to him.
This is nice,
I thought contentedly as the aroma of marinara mingled pleasantly with a whiff of wood smoke.
I could get used to this.

Armando was silent for several minutes, gazing at the fire. I hoped he was having similar thoughts about our new domestic arrangement. “So what do you think?” I finally prompted him.

“About what?”

“About the
Henstock
house.
What do you think about finding an investor and converting it into an elegant bed-and-breakfast?”

With the fingers of his free hand, Armando gently tipped my face up to his. I felt the full voltage of his warm brown eyes as they smiled into mine.

“I think we should get married,” he said.

Nine

As if my universe were not already reeling, our censorious correspondent was back the next morning with his most alarming message yet. “What makes you assume it’s a man?” Jenny asked, holding the unopened envelope by one corner. “Couldn’t a woman be capable of a stunt like this?”

She had a point. I had good reason to know that a woman could indeed be our poison pen-pal. A couple of years back, a local businesswoman had been similarly tormented by a female blackmailer. She had turned out to be a religious zealot, or “
nicey
-nice behaving badly,” as Margo put it.

Using the letter opener Jenny handed me, I carefully slit open the envelope, again postmarked Storrs, Connecticut, and shook out a single piece of white paper and a news clipping. Holding the paper open at one corner, I poked it open with the letter opener and read aloud: “The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the rampart of
Jezreel
.” I looked at Jenny blankly. “Yikes.”

“On second thought, maybe you’re right. A woman might pull another woman’s hair out, but throwing her to the dogs is definitely a guy thing. But which one of us is he so mad at?”

“I don’t know, Jen, but I’m starting to take this a whole lot more seriously.” I thought for a minute. “Maybe if we found out what Jezebel did?” I suggested.

“Good idea.” A true child of the information age, Jenny quickly
Googled
the name Jezebel, reviewed the first page of hits, and selected a Wikipedia entry.
“ ‘Jezebel
is introduced in the Bible as a Phoenician princess, the daughter of the King of Sidon, who marries King Ahab. She turns Ahab away from the God of the Jews and toward the worship of the Phoenician god Baal. Furthermore, she uses her control over Ahab to lead the Hebrews into idolatry and sexual immorality.’” Jenny scanned the rest of the article quickly. “There’s a lot of fury and smiting and battles, as you would expect, but here’s what we want. Some guy named Jehu is finally appointed by the god of the Jews to kill Jezebel. It says, ‘Jehu then confronts Jezebel in
Jezreel
and urges her eunuchs to kill her by throwing her out a window. They comply, tossing her out the window and leaving her in the street to be eaten by dogs. Only Jezebel’s skull, feet, and hands remained.’
Nice, huh?”