Dream House (16 page)

“He made her give up her career.”

“Who told you that?” Vaughan scowled. “That was Margaret's idea. She didn't want to travel all over the country. She wanted to be with Hank. They were newlyweds, for God's sake. And after they moved in with Oscar, they didn't have much privacy.”

“So he
wasn't
possessive?”

Vaughan reached for another cigarette, tapped it on the table. “I thought you're trying to find out what happened to Margaret. Why the third degree about Hank?”

“Maybe she ran away because he was possessive. Maybe she was afraid of him.”

“That's ridiculous! Hank would never hurt her! And he'd kill anyone who did.” Vaughan was glaring at me now.

“I'm trying to understand her motivation, Ned.”

He lit the cigarette and puffed. That seemed to calm him. “Okay, Hank can be possessive,” he allowed. “Margaret was his whole world, and he wanted her to feel the same way about him. The thing is, aside from me and one or two others, he doesn't have many friends. Margaret—well, she knows everybody.”

“What about her male friends? Was Hank jealous of them?”

“So we're back to Hank?” he asked in a warning tone.

“Again, motivation. If Margaret
thought
he was jealous . . .” I let him fill in the rest.

Vaughan sighed. “He didn't like the way men looked at her or talked to her. Margaret is outgoing, friendly. She played hostess at all of Oscar's parties. Hank had a hard time sharing her. But he trusted her one hundred percent. One hundred percent,” he repeated.

The architect was protesting a bit too much, it seemed to me. Protecting his best friend? “Was Margaret a flirt?”

He frowned. “I wouldn't say a
flirt.
She liked men and was comfortable with them. I don't think she realized the effect she had on them.”

“Men like who?” Jeremy Dorn, I thought.

He hesitated. “If I tell you, you'll tell Hank.”

“Not necessarily. I'm not in his employ.”

“I thought you're doing this for him.”

“I'm doing this because I write about true crimes, and because I met Professor Linney, and I want to know what happened to Margaret. Men like who?” I repeated.

“Roger Modine.”

That was a surprise. “Margaret liked him?” I couldn't picture the concert pianist with the crude, oxlike Modine. Bubbie G would have called him a
bulvan.

“Not particularly. Hank may not have a college degree, but he's a gentleman. Modine is vulgar and he's a brute. Hank doesn't like him much, but they're partners in some real estate deals, so Margaret had to make nice. Modine obviously thought there was more to it.”

“How do you know?”

Vaughan hesitated again. “She told me. Oscar threw a party a few weeks before she disappeared. Modine was doing work at the Fuller house and saw the preparations. He got Hank to
invite him.” The architect crinkled his nose as if he'd sniffed something offensive. “Modine had a few drinks too many and cornered Margaret when Hank wasn't around, said some pretty suggestive things.”

I raised a brow. “To his partner's wife?”

“I told you, he's a pig.” Vaughan grunted. “He'd sell his mother for the right price.”

I wasn't surprised by Vaughan's assessment. My encounter with Modine had left me unimpressed. “So what did Margaret do?”

“That's the thing. There were people nearby, and she didn't want to make a scene. So she laughed it off.”

And maybe Modine thought she liked the attention. “She didn't tell Hank later?”

Vaughan shook his head. “Bad timing. Hank and Modine were having problems with some of their properties.”

I sensed from his tone that there was something else, and that he was deciding whether or not to tell me. “And?”

He studied the fiery tip of his cigarette. “He'd told Margaret a few times that she was too friendly, that guys could get the wrong idea. She told him he was being silly.”

Now I was confused. “Too friendly with Modine?”

“Too friendly with
everyone.
But you can see why she didn't tell him about Modine. And she was afraid Hank would overreact if she did.”

I decided to think about that later. “What about Jeremy Dorn?”

“What about him?”

I could tell Vaughan was being coy. “Did Hank think Margaret was too friendly with him?”

“If he did, he didn't tell me about it.”

I wasn't sure if I believed him. “You mentioned that Hank and Modine were having problems with some properties. What kind of problems?”

“You know, I think you'd better ask Hank.” He flicked cigarette ash into the ashtray. “I really don't see how any of this will help you find out what happened to Margaret.” He sounded unhappy and nervous.

“It may not,” I agreed. “So what do
you
think happened, Ned?”

He frowned. “If you'd asked me yesterday, before the tape with Margaret's phone call, I would've said someone killed her. Maybe for the jewelry, maybe it was about something else.”

“Like what?”

Vaughan shrugged.

“Maybe someone did it to shut her up,” I said, speculating aloud. “Like Modine.”

Vaughan had turned pale. He licked his lips. “Listen, you can't tell Hank what I told you about Modine. Modine will know it came from me, and I don't need him breaking down my door.” His fingers shook.

“Didn't you tell all this to the police?”

“There's nothing to tell. Hank thought it was a kidnapper. I thought so, too, because of the jewelry. That's what I told the police. Just because Modine came on to Margaret doesn't mean he killed her. Why would he do that?”

Vaughan put out his cigarette and stood, sending a mist of ash onto his newly finished floors. Interview over.

I considered his question while he retrieved my raincoat. Suppose Modine had dropped by the Fuller house that night. Suppose he'd taken advantage of the fact that Hank wasn't home and made a move on Margaret.

Suppose Margaret had threatened to tell Hank.

Her husband.

His partner.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-NINE

Z
ACK BROUGHT ME CALLA LILIES. “TO MAKE UP FOR
LAST
night,” he said as I arranged the flowers in a vase and set them on my breakfast room table.

“Did you resolve the shul crisis?” I asked.

“It wasn't a crisis. How's your investigation going?”

Obviously, he was changing the subject. He sounded uncomfortable and I wondered why but didn't press. On the way to the restaurant he asked me about Linney, and I started filling him in on what I'd learned. I told him the rest over steamy butternut squash soup, a perfect antidote for the chilly air that blew in every time someone opened the main door and made me shiver in my just-above-the-knees Burberry skirt and long-sleeved, V-necked camel cashmere sweater.

On a modesty scale I was about a seven and a half (points for the sleeves; deductions for the neck and hemlines; the sweater's snug fit; my hair, which I'd left curly and mussed into what I hoped was sexy disarray; and general attitude). It was a compromise, prompted by the weather and my reflection before falling asleep last night that maybe Edie was right and I was making a mountain out of inches. The
maybe
is my stubbornness asserting itself. In any case, Zack hadn't seemed to notice.

“First, we have to establish whether Margaret Linney is alive or dead,” he said now.

I love the
we.
I love the way he creases his forehead when he's serious, the way his gray-blue eyes darken, the way he listens intently to what I have to say.

“I think she's dead,” I said. “From what everyone told me, she would never have abandoned her father.”

Zack nodded. “Under normal circumstances. But the Golden Vista guy said she was desperate.”

I'd traveled this mental path. “Because she was terrified someone would kill her.”

“Right.”

“Her husband.”

“That's the only thing that would make sense, Molly. Because if she was afraid of someone else, she'd go to the police and tell her husband,” Zack said, lapsing into the musical cadence of Talmudic disputation that I'd heard so often from my dad and brothers. “But she didn't do either. And if she's afraid of her
husband
. . .” He raised his palms. “Unfortunately, the police have a hard time protecting a woman from an abusive spouse or partner. They usually advise her to leave.”

“No one I've talked to has suggested that Hank abused Maggie.” I spread olive tapenade on a thick slice of warm, crusty bread.

“Maybe she didn't tell anyone. He's controlling, possessive, jealous, right? And there's reason to suspect he abused his father-in-law.”

“Linney could have imagined that. He was probably paranoid from one of his meds. I have to check on that.” I handed him the bread. Our fingers touched.

“Just because someone's paranoid—”

“Doesn't mean no one's after him,” I finished.

Zack studied me. “But you don't buy it.”

I slathered another slice and took a bite, savoring the meaty, salty taste of olives, capers, and peppers. “If Hank was abusing Linney,” I said when I'd finished chewing, “all the more reason for Maggie not to skip. She would've worried that he'd take out his anger on her dad.”

“Unless she feared for her life.”

I pondered that. “Maybe.”

“Okay, suppose he
wasn't
abusing Linney,” Zack said reluctantly. “He's making Maggie's life miserable. He's cut her off from her friends. He's encouraged her to end her career. She wants out of the marriage, but she knows he'll never let her go, and if she leaves, he'll try to find her. So she fakes her kidnapping.”

I'd come this far in my thinking, too. “And she leaves her father?” I said, not bothering to hide my skepticism.

“She'd planned to place him in a facility before she left. She was waiting for the right time. But something happened, and she had to move quickly.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe Reston found out she was having an affair.”

“We don't know that.” I took another bite of the bread.

“Either that, or he accused her of it. In either case, she's afraid. That's why she was anxious for Golden Vista to take Linney right away. When they couldn't, she had no choice. Father or no father, she had to disappear.”

“And she comes
back
?”

“She's feeling guilty. Her father has a debilitating disease—two, actually. Three, if he has MS. She doesn't want to wait until he's so far gone that he can't communicate or recognize her.”

The waitress brought our orders—grilled halibut for Zack, Chilean sea bass for me. We ate for a while without speaking. I was aware of the clink of flatware against china and the conversation and laughter from the other diners. I doubted that any of them were talking about abuse and murder.

“So what do you think?” Zack asked.

“Great sea bass.”

He smiled patiently. “I mean about my theory.”

I speared a chunk of fish. “It works, until we get to the fire. Why hasn't Maggie come forward?”

“She's still afraid of Reston. Her father's dead, and her coming forward won't change that.”

“So who killed him? And why now?”

“How do we know he was killed, Molly? It could have been an accidental consequence of the vandalism.”

I rolled my eyes. “I
told
you. Linney was afraid of climbing stairs, but that's where he was. Upstairs.”

“So he climbed carefully. He stayed after she left and decided to rest. Upstairs, in his old room.”

I didn't answer.

“Why not?” Zack sounded annoyed, which is unusual for him. “It works.”

“I don't buy the tape.” I put down my fork. “What kind of daughter asks her feeble-bodied, feebleminded father to meet her at their old house when she knows damn well he has no way of getting there on his own?” The woman at the table next to us was staring at me. I leaned toward Zack and lowered my voice. “And how the hell was he supposed to get back to Muirfield? Especially when it was night.”

Zack frowned. He chewed a few forkfuls of halibut, his jaw working the food hard. I ate my sea bass.

“So she's dead,” he finally said.

“Even if she's alive, she didn't make that call, Zack. Whoever did used it to lure Linney to the house.”

“I kind of figured that out,” Zack said dryly. “So why the rush to place him in Golden Vista if she wasn't going to run away?”

“Maybe she
was,
but Hank found out. Ochs, the Golden Vista owner, left a phone message, telling her he had a bed for Linney. What if Hank checked the messages and figured out what Maggie was planning?” The thought had struck me after I'd left the facility.

“So you
do
think he killed her,” Zack said. “Because she was having an affair?”

“Not necessarily.”

He sighed. “Are we playing twenty questions?”

“There's this Robert Browning poem I studied in high school,” I said. “‘My Last Duchess.' Do you know it?”

He shook his head. “I wasn't the most motivated student.”

“Except when it came to studying girls.” I could smile about it now. “Anyway, it's a dramatic monologue narrated by a wealthy duke who's showing someone a portrait of his late duchess. From what the duke says, you get a picture of an arrogant, controlling SOB who treats people like objects and likes having them under his control.”

“Creepy.”

“Very. He was upset because the duchess didn't value him more than she valued everyone else. She smiled at everyone. She had a heart ‘too soon made glad.'”

Zack raised a brow. “That's a crime?”

“Apparently to him. He killed her. Well, he doesn't come out and say so, because his visitor is an emissary for some other wealthy guy whose daughter he wants to marry.”

“And you think Hank is like the duke.”

“Even his best friend admitted that Hank warned Maggie about being too friendly with other guys. But would he
kill
her?” I sighed. “I really
like
Hank. I think he loved Maggie, and he seems genuinely heartbroken. But who knows what he's really like, or what went on in that house? Modine is another story.”

“He's the contractor?”

“And Reston's partner.” I repeated what I'd learned from Ned Vaughan. “I can see him panicking and killing Maggie if she threatened to tell Hank he'd propositioned her. He's a brute.”

“According to Vaughan. Modine may be a nice guy.”

“I doubt it. Call it gut feeling.” Yes, I was prejudiced. I didn't fault Modine for protecting Reston's house against a trespasser, but had it been necessary to tie me up? I wasn't about to tell the truth to Zack—or to my family, who would all warn me to be careful. Which I am.

“What if Vaughan is trying to shift suspicion to Modine?” Zack said.

I frowned. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he was jealous of Hank and Maggie. After all, he knew her first. He
introduced
him to Maggie.”

“He says no. He has a girlfriend.”

“Well,
that
should convince a judge.”

I had that coming. “And Fennel says no, and he knows everything.” But Zack had planted a doubt. “He
was
edgy the entire time I was there. Smoked up a storm. I thought he was uncomfortable talking about his best friend.”

“Maybe that's it, then. But what if Fennel is wrong?”

“Suppose Vaughan
was
jealous. Why would he kill Maggie?”

“Because he didn't want Hank to have her.”

“And her father?”

Zack shrugged. “I have no clue.”

“You're a big help.” I picked at my fish and pictured Vaughan, replayed our conversation. I shook my head. “I don't think he had feelings for Maggie, Zack. He's a dry kind of guy. The only thing he's passionate about, from what I could tell, is doorknobs and parquet floors. He
is
terrified of Modine. He looked like he was going to faint when he thought Modine would find out what he'd told me about the party. He wasn't faking that.”

“So Modine's your man, huh?”

“He's leading the pack, for now.”

“But if Modine killed her,” Zack said a moment later, “why was Maggie anxious to place her father in a facility?”

He had me there. I twirled the base of my water goblet. “Maybe the Golden Vista thing isn't connected to her disappearance. Maybe Linney and Hank had a terrible quarrel and she knew she had to choose between her father and husband. And she chose her husband.”

Zack nodded. “That's what Jewish law dictates, you know. We're commanded to honor a parent, but our first obligation—our loyalty—is to our spouse.”

“Interesting.”

“Michal, King David's wife, helped David escape from her father, King Saul, when Saul came to kill him. She fooled him into thinking David was sick in bed. Rachel and Leah chose their husband, Jacob, over their father, Lavan.”

“Not a hard choice,” I said. “As I recall, Lavan was manipulative and evil. Anyway, enough about this. It's depressing me. Tell me about your day.”

His day had been busy: visiting two congregants in the hospital; leading a Talmud class for beginners, another for veterans; meeting with a future bride and groom; consoling a couple whose in vitro fertilization attempt had failed.

“So what happened last night?” I asked. “Of course, if it's confidential, I understand that you can't tell me.”

“Actually, it turned out not to be a big deal.” He cleared his throat. “I feel bad about the last-minute change in plans, Molly. It's something else that goes with the rabbi territory.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? You know, I've been giving a lot of thought to what you said the other night, Molly. I think—”

“Dessert?” the waitress asked, rolling over a cart.

We made our selections, and the waitress left.

“You were saying?” I prompted Zack. He seemed suddenly preoccupied, and I wondered what was bothering him. The thing that had bothered him when he'd picked me up?

“It's not important. It'll keep.”

I felt another blast of cold air from the opened door. With it in blew my ex-husband Ron. He's hard to miss in a crowd. Tall, blond, and extremely handsome with chiseled features, like a young Robert Redford.

The nice thing about dining in kosher restaurants in your hometown is that you invariably know some of the people you see. The downside is that you may not always want to see them. Ron spotted us and waved. I watched him cross the room, stopping to chat at almost every table, smiling, laughing. I knew he was headed our way, and I felt the way I do when I'm in the dentist's chair, about to have a cavity filled—wishing I were somewhere else, tensing as I open my mouth for the prick of the needle, though at least the needle delivers Novocain and numbness.

“Hey, man. How're you doing?” he said when he was at our table. He punched Zack's arm playfully, a little too hard.

Zack smiled. “Fine. You?”

“Great. Couldn't be better. I'm meeting someone for dinner.” That may sound like a non sequitur, but for Ron, dining or going to a movie alone, both of which I've done often, is a sign of social failure. “You didn't return my call, Molly,” he said, with the petulance he thinks I still find boyishly cute.

“Sorry. I've had a busy day.” Plus I'd been in no rush to talk to Ron, which is like taking cough medicine—mildly unpleasant on swallowing, with a bitter aftertaste.

“Can I talk to you a second? It's important.”

“Now?” I repressed a sigh and looked at Zack. “I'll be right back.”

“No problem.”

“Don't worry,” Ron said. “I won't steal her from you.”

The last was a dig. Though he pretends otherwise, Ron has a problem with my dating Zack. It's not that he's pining for me, and I heard he's seeing someone new. Again. I think he's got a bad case of “finders, keepers” and a bruised ego, aggravated by the fact that he and Zack were high school pals, and that he was instrumental (or so he claims) in having Zack hired by the shul board (he's a member), which is basically how Edie came to fix us up. (Long story.) In Ron's head, he and Zack were best friends, and now he mourns that loss, too, and blames Zack and me for it. Mostly me, probably.

I followed him to a spot about ten feet away, next to a table a busboy was clearing.