Hearse and Gardens (2 page)

We ran out the bungalow door and headed toward Sandringham. I tried not to trip on the uneven beach terrain or get blinded by the sand spraying in my face from Elle's Clydesdale-inspired boots.

When we turned to take a trail that led to the front of the main house, Elle grabbed my elbow so I could read her lips. She knew, even if she shouted, I couldn't hear over the din of the breaking waves and buzzing wind. “This way. It'll be quicker.”

As we ran, I dialed 911 and handed off my phone to Elle. I knew there wasn't a reason to hurry, because the body we'd just seen in the bungalow was long dead. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

Elle rapped on the mammoth sliding glass doors. A Grace Kelly blonde in her midforties came toward us
looking like she'd just stepped off the red carpet in Monte Carlo. She slid open the door.

“Oh my, I know you, don't I?” She directed her stare at Elle.

“Hello, Celia, it's Elle, Uncle Harry's great-niece.”

“Oh, yes, of course. You're the one who wears the old-lady pins and thrift store clothing. If I remember correctly, your great-aunt was a Warner. Her people were potato farmers.”

“Yes, until my great-grandpa sold the farm for millions.”

I knew Elle's story was true. Back in the early part of the twentieth century, potato farms were a big thing in the Hamptons. Now, few farms remained. They'd been sold to celebs and tycoons as prime spots to build their mega estates. The Hamptons weren't nicknamed the American Riviera for nothing.

Elle said, “Is it okay if we come in? We have an emergency.”

“Quickly. This room is temperature and humidity controlled.”

We stepped in, and I caught a whiff of Celia's strong perfume and sneezed. A pet peeve of mine: women who wore so much perfume, it arrived in the room before they did.

Elle said, “Bless you.”

Celia looked at me like I had the plague. I didn't like her snooty 'tude, so I dropped our bombshell. “We just found a body in one of the bungalows.”

Celia put her hand to her mouth and made a pouty O with her lips.

“The police should be here any minute,” Elle added.

Celia stood to the side as we entered a large space with white marble floors.

This addition of Sandringham was nothing like the rest of the mansion. The walls were made completely of glass. Above us was a transparent section of the ceiling. I looked up into the underbelly of a glossy white Steinway. If I was ever invited upstairs for a recital, I'd be sure not to wear a skirt.

White leather sofas and sleek chrome and leather chaises melded perfectly with the modern art: Warhols, de Koonings, Lichtensteins, and Pollocks, just to name a few, were set either on clear acrylic easels or trapezoid sections of wall open at the top, making the artwork seem to float. There were a few zany, but powerful, sculptures spaced around a room the size of a MoMA exhibit hall. Every side or coffee table was made out of Plexiglas, allowing the art to take center stage. A clear spiral staircase was in the center of the room, leading to the second floor. Outside, nature's aquarium, the Atlantic, was only steps away. Inside, we were the ones in a huge fish tank.

“Come this way.” Celia led us toward a back wall. With the toe of her designer shoes, she tapped a piece of marble.
Open sesame
, wood panels parted and exposed the original nineteenth-century part of Sandringham.

Celia walked ahead and turned the corner at the end of a long hallway, perfume trailing in her wake.

We followed the long Persian-carpeted hallway into a grand foyer with coffered ceilings. Classical art in ornate antique frames with brass nameplates hung from the rich mahogany paneling. Inset into the paneling were cubes
displaying busts of seventeenth-century wigged aristocrats.

Someone banged on the front door. Celia advanced to open it but was cut off by a man with longish brown hair that looked strategically messy. His not-quite-faded summer tan was a perfect backdrop for his blue eyes. He was dressed casually in jeans, a pink polo shirt, and loafers, but they were nice jeans, a nice polo, and even nicer Gucci loafers. “I'll get it, Mrs. Falks.”

“Thanks, Richard,” Celia said.

He gave her a roguish smirk and bowed, as if playacting, then went to a keypad hidden behind a hinged portrait of a scowling gentleman. After Richard performed a complicated routine on the keypad, a green light turned red, and the huge front door opened inward.

Detective Shoner stood at the doorway. He looked at us and rubbed his eyes.

“We're not a mirage, Arthur.” Elle went to him and leaned her five-four frame into his five-five frame. Elle and I met Detective Shoner last March. I suspected the detective and Elle had a thing going on. Elle's behavior just confirmed it.

Detective Shoner stepped in and closed the door. “What's this about a dead body?” He was dressed impeccably, a perfect match to this formal side of the mansion.

Richard said, “Dead body?”

“And you are?” the detective asked in his usual non-bedside manner.

Celia came forward and introduced herself as Celia Jameson Falks, saying she hoped the detective didn't
think this messy business had anything to do with Sandringham.
As if!

“Body? Where?” Detective Shoner repeated, nonplussed.

Elle remained mute, so I said, “We were working in one of the bungalows on the estate and we found a skeleton.”

Even without my hearing aids, I heard a clattering coming from the back hallway: a thump, scuttle, thump, thump. A wizened form, reminiscent of the skeleton we'd just found, moved toward us. Harrison Falks piloted his wheeled walker like a B-52 on a mission. Elle stuck her hand out and pressed it against his chest to stop his momentum.

“Who forgot to invite me to the party?” A rivulet of drool pooled onto Uncle Harry's huge lower lip.

“Good morning, Unc. It's Elle, your great-niece. Remember?”

Harrison Falks's milky eyes looked her over from head to toe. Then he smiled. “Little Elf. Did you hear the one about the basset hound and the bullfighter?”

Elle looked dumbfounded.

He glanced around the foyer. “Anyone?”

Celia said, “For God's sake, Harrison. Your stupid jokes will be the death of me.”

Uncle Harry took one of his hands off the walker and waved it in the air. He started to teeter, so I grabbed the walker to keep it from rolling out from under him.

Richard, who I assumed was some kind of butler, major domo, and nothing like the regal Carson from
Downton Abbey
, shoved me aside. “I've got him.”

“Come on, you bunch of nincompoops, what's your
answer?” Uncle Harry lifted the walker and cracked it hard against the marble tile.

Richard jumped and went to stand behind Celia. I was able to read his lips when he whispered, “Who's the nincompoop?”

“Hey, sir,” I said.

“Call me Uncle Harry, young lady.”

“Uncle Harry, it's Meg. I met you last week when Elle brought me here for tea. I'm stumped. Please tell me, what's the difference between a basset hound and a bullfighter?”

Uncle Harry stood perfectly still. He opened his large mouth and started to wail. His upper dentures separated from his gums and fell to his lowers. He mumbled with tear-filled eyes, “I don't know, I just don't know. What's the answer? Tell me.”

I couldn't stand to see him so distressed, so I fudged it. “A basset hound is a dog and a bullfighter is full of bull.”

He readjusted his teeth. “Yes, that's it. By Jove, you've got it.” He closed his mouth and scooted toward the rear hallway. To my astonishment, he touched a section of mahogany paneling, and the wall slid open. After a few clanks with the walker, he disappeared inside an elevator, and the panel slid back in place.

Celia said, “Where the hell is that nurse of his? Why do we pay her such an exorbitant salary? She can't even keep track of him.”

A curvaceous woman, looking the opposite of any nurse I'd ever seen, sauntered down the ornate winding staircase with a tray in her hand.

“Nurse. There you are.” Celia walked to the bottom
step. “Are you going to keep tabs on my husband or just let him roam about willy-nilly?”

Nurse's hair was long and wavy, in a striking shade of russet. Despite the fact she looked to be around forty, her huge breasts looked perky beneath her sweater. “He took the elevator while I was fixing his bath. And Celia, the name is Brandy, not Nurse. As you know, I'm also Harrison's personal assistant, who just happened to have taken nursing classes after he fell ill.” She looked at Detective Shoner but didn't say anything.

I could picture Celia and Brandy in a catfight.
Meow!

“Harrison's probably back upstairs by now,” Richard said.

Detective Shoner opened the front door. “Enough of this. Elle and Meg, please show me what you found.”

We led Detective Shoner to the bungalow. He put on a pair of gloves, opened the door, and walked inside. We tried to follow but he shooed us away.

“Aren't you cold?” Elle buttoned up her coat and pulled up her hood, the feather on her hat long gone. In this buffeting wind, I was surprised her hat hadn't followed suit.

“I'm good.” I was shaking, but not from the cold. My insomniac middle-of-the-night trips to the beach, dressed only in pj's and a robe, made me immune to foul weather. “So, whose body do you think we found?”

“Forget that. Look, someone's coming this way. Maybe he's the killer?”

“We don't know anyone was murdered. Maybe the door got stuck.”

“Right. And the bookcase magically moved on its own to block the door.”

“Shush.”

As the man got closer, I saw he was in his forties and ruggedly handsome. He reminded me of Gregory Peck in
To Kill a Mockingbird
—my favorite movie and book. He held a walking stick in one hand and in the other a clear plastic bag filled with sea grass, roots and all.

“Hello, ladies, is there something I can help you with?” I was pretty sure I'd read his lips correctly. Elle said nothing, no doubt thinking this man with a heavy five-o'clock shadow was a serial killer.

“No, we're okay. Just waiting for someone who had to step inside.” I didn't disclose the fact a homicide detective and a skeleton were in the bungalow.

Elle said, “And who are you?”

“I'm the Falkses' neighbor. And you would be?”

“Elle Warner, Harrison Falks's great-niece.”

“We have to be careful with who comes and goes around here. We get a lot of lookie-loos because of the Andy Warhol connection.” He nodded his head to the west, where I knew Warhol's former compound stood.

I stuck my hand out and said, “Meg Barrett, nice to meet you,” just as Detective Shoner exited the bungalow.

Not a man of subtleties, Detective Shoner walked over to us. “Who's this guy?”

The man said, “Nathan. What's wrong? Has there been a break-in?” He zeroed in on the badge hanging from the detective's neck.

“Not sure of anything until we process the scene. Do you have a last name, Nathan?”

“Morrison.”

The detective handed Nathan his card and told him to
come down to the station for a statement. Nathan seemed hesitant about leaving but finally walked east, clutching his walking stick and grass specimens.

We left Detective Shoner and a crew from the East Hampton Town Police on the beach after I convinced Elle we wouldn't be able to remove any goodies from the bungalow. Not even Detective Shoner was allowed to touch anything until the CSIs from Hauppauge, a town seventy miles away, arrived.

We grabbed lunch at Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton. Naturally, we sat at the old-fashioned soda fountain counter for our grilled cheeses. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent in Sag Harbor, working on our fixer-uppers in Elle's carriage house/workshop.

Elle had filled me in on what little she knew about her great-aunt Elsie's part of the family and the inner sanctum at Sandringham. Celia was Uncle Harry's third wife. Celia had a daughter from a previous marriage, Kate. Uncle Harry's son had married a local Montauk girl and had a child named Liv, who now lived on the estate, along with Celia's daughter; both girls were in their early twenties. With the exception of a few daily housecleaners and a cook, named Mrs. Anderson, that left Richard and Brandy, valet/chauffeur and nurse/assistant, to round out the list.

But who was the skeleton in the bungalow?

It had been a week since our discovery. Georgia, the proprietor of The Old Man and the Sea Books, was pruning roses on her white picket fence. “Do you believe all these flowers in October?” She clipped a pale peach bloom and waved it under my nose.

“Spicy, yet sweet.”

“The way I like my men,” she said.

I coughed. “Don't make me blush. I can't think of Doc that way.” Septuagenarian Georgia began dating sexagenarian Doc last June. “Doc” Marshall Heckler was a buddy of my father's from when they both worked for the Detroit PD. Doc was a retired coroner and my father a retired homicide detective. Doc was the only family I had on the Eastern Seaboard.

Georgia went into the bookshop, and I followed. With the exception of a dusty old attic at an estate sale, The Old
Man and the Sea Books was my favorite place to hang out. A converted cottage dating from the 1930s, it even had a working fireplace fronted by two cushy wing chairs. A stack of logs and kindling waited for the first cold snap. I half hoped the weather would turn foul—not like the last late-season hurricane—just cold enough to put a chill in my bones so I could reheat them in front of a toasty fire.

The thought of bones reminded me of the body in the bungalow. “Last week, Elle and I found a skeleton at Sandringham,” I blurted out. The skeleton hadn't made it into the news. The police promised not to publicize it until they received the autopsy results and notified next of kin.

“Are you kidding? Whose? Harrison Falks's? He's older than the hills.” Georgia was an expert on all things Montauk and a patron of the Hamptons art scene.

I went to the counter and poured myself a cup of Earl Grey from the electric teapot. “You can't say anything until the police announce it, but Elle and I were cleaning out one of the bungalows and found a skeleton in a secret room. I'm not sure, but it looked like the room was used as a recording studio. It was windowless and even had padded walls.”

“Gracious me. It probably was. Back in the seventies, a lot of artists, musicians, and groupies flocked to Harrison Falks's and Andy Warhol's compounds, even the Rolling Stones.” She grinned. “Me included.” Georgia opened the small fridge under the counter, took out a slice of lemon, and plunked it in my tea. “Of course, Andy's was much harder to get into, even though he barely came out here.”

Everyone in the Hamptons knew the Rolling Stones' song “Memory Motel” was written about the motel that
still stood on Main Street in Montauk. Most were under the impression the Stones stayed at the tiny motel/bar that looked like it hadn't changed in sixty years, but I'd learned from Georgia they didn't. They just used it as a watering hole.

“Wow, can't picture you as a rocker.”

Georgia's white hair was cropped short to keep the wind from slowing her down on her daily six-mile bike ride to the Montauk Point Lighthouse and back. She was my same height, five seven, but weighed about fifteen pounds less.

I poured some water from a small carafe, graciously placed there to cool customers' tea to drinkable status. “I don't know how to gauge the time period it takes a body to morph from flesh to skeleton, but I'm assuming this guy or gal must've been there for a while. It's funny, a corpse of bones is so much more palatable than one with flesh.”

“Yes, hilarious. I can't think of anyone gone missing around here. Oh, wait. Liv Falks's father, Pierce, disappeared about twenty years ago, along with Helen Morrison. And so did Pierce's father's Warhol painting of a can of Aqua Net hairspray valued in the upper millions. Warhol gifted the Aqua Net to Harrison Falks. Everyone assumed Pierce and his lover Helen ran off together and took the Warhol.”

“Aqua Net hairspray? You're kidding, right? Iconic soup I understand, but hairspray?”

“Supposedly, only the family ever saw the Warhol. The reason the public found out the picture was a can of hairspray was because Harrison thought his son and his lover had absconded with it. By broadcasting its theft, it would
make it harder to fence. I don't think Harrison cared as much about the painting being returned as he did his black sheep of a son. Tragically, a few years after Pierce's disappearance, Pierce's wife drowned in a yachting accident off Montauk Point.”

“So, who is Helen Morrison?”

“Nathan Morrison's wife. His family estate, Morrison Manor, lies next to Sandringham. When the majority of the family land was sold to pay taxes, Nathan and Helen were forced to take up residence in the Morrison Manor gatehouse.”

I thought about the man I'd met the week before on the Falkses' beach outside the bungalow. As my father would attest to, scorned love was the modus operandi in many a homicide. “Hmmm. That's complicated. Pierce was married but having an affair with his next door neighbor?”

“Yes, and Pierce had a child, Liv. The child was the reason for the marriage.

I set my cup on the table between the wing chairs, and my heart hiccupped when I spied a new book by Patrick Seaton.

Georgia followed my eyes as they darted from her to the table. She went to the table and picked up the book,
Tales from a Dead Shore—A Biography of Tortured Poets
, and handed it to me
.

Patrick Seaton was my recluse neighbor. He lived on the other side of the nature preserve, next to my rental, and occasionally left melancholy poetry in the sand on his beach. Patrick Seaton had moved to Montauk after his wife and child were killed in an automobile crash. We were kindred spirits. Not that I could compare my ex's cheating,
or even the loss of my mother at a young age, to losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident. But we shared a love of classic poetry and the ocean. And it made living alone a little less lonely.

“Maybe I should buy
Forensics for Dummies
?” I went to the shelf and pulled it out.

“You're no dummy. Plus, we have Doc and your father for any cutting-edge insight into crime. You have other reading to do, Patrick Seaton's new book.”

She rang up the book and slipped in a couple of home and garden magazines, my addiction, free of charge. We had an understanding, if I came across any vintage New York seltzer bottles in turquoise, her addiction, they went straight into her collection.

Georgia walked me to the door. “I can't believe I forgot to tell you. Patrick Seaton was in last week with his publicist, Ashley Drake. She bought a Long Island
Zagat
's. Patrick just stood in front of the poetry section with his hands in the pockets of his black pea coat, collar turned up, all dark and brooding. He didn't say a word to me and walked out when Ashley grabbed him by the arm. They made a handsome couple. Time for you to step up and introduce yourself, before Ashley snatches him away.”

“I'd be happy for him if he found someone, after what he went through. And I've told you and Elle, I like things just the way they are. Now that you-know-who has been out of the picture for the past few months, delivering one of his yachts to Australia, I'm putting all my attention on my new romance—my very own cottage.”

My latest crush, Cole Spenser, and I had become
almost-lovers last spring. But his home was in a different state and mine in Montauk. Case closed. At least for now.

Mr. Whiskers came out from the back room. Another reason I loved the bookshop was the back room where Georgia kept vintage and antique books. The cat wound his way in and out of Georgia's legs. He looked at me and hightailed it to the seat of a wing chair. I'd rescued Mr. Whiskers last May from a Dumpster when I'd been diving for vintage treasure. I'd thought his glowing eyes were a piece of Tiffany glass. Originally, Georgia and I planned to share custody. She was supposed to keep Mr. Whiskers in the cold months, and me in the warm. This past summer I was homeless because I'd rented out my cottage for the season to make some extra money, so he stayed with Georgia. And apparently, by his 'tude, he wouldn't be coming back. I stuck my tongue out at the cat. “Fair-weather friend.”

Georgia laughed, removed a cat treat from her jean pocket, and tossed it to him. “Thought you couldn't do anything on the property until you settle your court case with phony-baloney Gordon Miles, great-nephew and owner of your cottage—my arse! I used to bring hot meals to Old Lady Eberhardt and I know she didn't have a soul in the world after her husband died.”

Mrs. Eberhardt had been the original owner of the cottage. After she passed away, she left the house in her will to the church, who I bought it from. “I can't go into the cottage, per se, so I've decided to hire a landscape architect to draw up plans for the garden.”

I hadn't disclosed to anyone, with the exception of Elle, that last summer I'd taken the liberty of setting up shop in
the glass folly I'd discovered on
my
property. The little Queen Anne gem of a structure had been covered with vines and hidden behind eight-foot spikes of bamboo. I'd subleased my rental cottage for the months of June, July, and August at a seasonal rate of thirty thousand dollars, a bargain in this 'hood, and spent the summer fixing up the folly, even camping overnight in good weather. When I wasn't at the folly, I bunked at Elle's carriage house.

After I left The Old Man and the Sea Books, I grabbed a latte from the Montauk Coffeehouse, hopped in my Wrangler, and headed to my future home-sweet-home. A few miles later, I pulled into the narrow dirt drive. Rhododendron branches scratched at the Jeep's windows in welcome.

My appointment with landscape architect Byron Hughes wasn't for another half hour, but I needed time to go through the bursting-at-the-seams file box with garden ideas I'd been saving since the closing last April. Or should I say
supposed
closing. Elle and I decided Byron Hughes warranted his hefty retainer. Byron was almost as famous in the Hamptons area as Frederick Law Olmsted of Central Park fame was in his heyday.

I'd found out Grey Gardens in East Hampton—the former home of Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis's relatives—and my cottage in Montauk were designed by the same architect, Joseph Greenleaf Thorpe, at the turn of the nineteenth century. I'd come to call my cottage Little Grey. And if I wanted an endowment from the Montauk Landmark Committee, I needed to restore Little Grey to its former glory. Seeing I wasn't allowed to touch the house until the court ruled in
my favor, I planned to draw up plans for the garden. I'd take care of the design of the cottage myself based on old pictures and blueprints I'd found in a second-floor closet.

Last spring I'd macheted a path to the front door of the cottage but purposely left the way to the glass folly undisturbed. My secret hideaway. And the perfect place to envision a glorious garden.

Before heading to the folly, a.k.a. deer tick central, I bent down to make sure my jeans pooled over my boots—too many stories of Lyme disease gone undetected. When I stood, I glanced toward Little Grey. The front door was undisturbed, yellow tape barring Gordon Miles's and my entry.

Only, something was askew.

I went closer.

Dangling from the door handle, at the end of a hangman's knot, was a partially decomposed seagull.

Before I could let out a yelp, a car's engine sounded. A black Range Rover pulled next to my Jeep. Byron Hughes stepped out like a knight in dazzling armor. My mouth, still open, opened wider. I'd never met Byron in person, but I had seen numerous society photos of him in
Dave's Hamptons
. His tall frame was lean and fat-free. His hair was a sandy brown with gold streaks. Natural? His skin a burnished bronze, which he most likely maintained on a yearly basis: Aspen and St. Barts in the winter, the Amalfi Coast in the spring, and, of course, the Hamptons in the summer. For an instant, Byron's gorgeousness eclipsed the hideousness of the strangled gull.

I cursed Gordon Miles and any future generations he might propagate. Who else would have done something so
heinous to the poor gull? Not usually the shrinking violet type, I wasn't about to allow this Greek god of a man to see me as a wuss. I bit my bottom lip and pulled it together.

Or so I thought.

When Byron reached the front porch, he handed me a bouquet of Montauk daisies and a bag from The Old Man and the Sea Books. I collapsed into his outstretched arms like a cheap umbrella. He had me at daisies, but a book put it over the top.

After a few minutes, I pried myself from Byron's steel-cage embrace. Embarrassment reared its ugly head. “Sorry about the crushed flowers.”

“Don't worry. There are more where they came from.”

The timbre of his voice was rich and deep. I pointed to the seagull.

“Why don't you wait by my car? I'll take care of it.” He took out the silk pocket square from his suit jacket, walked up the steps and across the covered porch, then reached for the doorknob. The carcass swayed gently in the morning breeze. The poor bird. I turned away so Byron wouldn't see my tears and hurried to his car.