Midsummer Murder (9 page)

Midsummer Murder

emotional world. It had to be, but it was also claustrophobic. So much of their time was spent on tour, where you couldn’t get away from the situation or the participants. When people needed to vent, they usually took it out on each other. Like rioters in the ghetto, they only hurt themselves. “We always hurt the one we love,” she sang to the empty seats as she left the theater.

53

Five

Sandiman opened the door as Lindy reached the top of the stone steps. Slightly taken aback by this bit of seeming omniscience, she walked across the porch and managed, “Good afternoon.”

He bowed slightly, and she stepped inside. He was dressed in full sartorial splendor: black trousers, gray coat, an impeccably starched shirt front with a black tie riveted in place by a diamond stickpin.

“Madame and Ms. McFee are in the morning room if you would care to join them for tea.”

“Thank you, Sandiman.” Actually what she had in mind was something a little stronger than tea, but she followed him down the corridor, past the drawing room and library to a door behind the wide staircase.

She was aware of Marguerite and Biddy turning toward her, but for a moment she was too dazzled by the room to acknowledge them.

An assortment of tables and pedestals was topped by potted ferns, aspidistras, browallia, geraniums, and other plants whose flowers created a palette of yellow, orange, blue, and violet. Shades and textures of green shot upward dramatically or flowed luxuriantly across the tables. The variegated leaves of trailing ivy spilled off the edges and spread across the carpet.

In the middle of the room stood a tea table and several small but comfortable-looking chairs. Dumb canes and ficas stood beside them like dutiful servants. A silver tea service had been placed on the table next to a tiered plate of dainty sandwiches and pastries.

“You like it,” said Marguerite. It was a statement of sheer delight.

“We don’t have the leisure or the extra room for a conservatory, so I’ve combined functions into one room. In the mornings, when the sun is 54

Midsummer Murder

rising—” A graceful hand floated toward a bank of windows in a balletic pantomime. “It is a wonderful place for writing letters, reading, or just thinking.”

Her hand moved in a smooth arc from window to tea tray. “Milk or lemon?”

“Lemon, thank you.”

Biddy turned from the window. “Come look at the view. It’s incredible.”

An expanse of plate glass framed a mauve sky interrupted by bold white clouds that scudded into view and then passed away. In the distance, the tips of a mountain range, gray-green in the waning daylight, disappeared into the clouds. A flare of sunlight broke through an unseen hole in the sky. Nature’s spotlight, radiating downward and transforming the muted shadows to emerald green.

And before the mountains, miles of wilderness, crushed and upended from the glacial thaw thousands of years ago. And though its roughness was tempered by trees and shrubs, one could almost feel the vestiges of violence that had once thrust the earth in on itself, compacting and spewing up rock in some places and rending it into vast chasms in others. Thousands of years of time had made this country and it was overwhelming.

Lindy scanned the vista, then came to focus on the land closer to the house. There were three terraces carved from the granite substratum.

The lowest housed a multiple-car garage and storage sheds. Above it, four tennis courts, stood back to back, perfectly paved, and devoid of players.

Directly below the window was a parking lot. A laundry truck was parked off to the right. Two men carried bundles of white linen beneath a roof and into an unseen door. Seconds later, they returned, jumped into the van, and drove away. One lone car remained in the lot, facing the view like a tourist stopped at a scenic turnoff: a white car, with the words, COUNTY SHERIFF, written in black on its door.

“Yes, he’s still here,” said Marguerite as she turned from the window.

She walked deliberately to a chair, then sat down suddenly. Her teacup rattled in its saucer. She smiled apologetically. “I’m beginning to despise that man.”

“He was here, talking to Marguerite when I left rehearsal,” said Biddy.

55

Shelley Freydont

“Absolutely galling,” added Marguerite. “I actually believe he is enjoying this, the despicable creature.” She placed her saucer on the table next to the chair and flicked a piece of imaginary lint from the Battenberg tablecloth.

“It wasn’t pleasant,” said Biddy under her breath.

Marguerite leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes. “He was making all sorts of innuendoes.” She opened one eye and shifted it toward the two women. “Sexual ones.” The eye closed. “We try to keep a careful watch over the students. Not all of them are adults. But it becomes more difficult each year. All this political correctness.

Threats of lawsuits if you so much as breathe heavily in their direction.”

Marguerite laughed abruptly and sat up.

“See what I mean? ‘Breathing heavy’ has automatic sexual connotations, even though what I meant was entirely different.

Sometimes I think I’m not fit for this world. We should be mourning the loss of a young man whose life was cut off in his prime. Instead the sheriff is trying to muck up any dirt he can just to make the Easton family uncomfortable.” She brought two elegant fingers to her brow. “Insidious.”

Lindy left Biddy at the window and sat down next to Marguerite.

Perhaps she could be of some use here. She certainly had struck out with everyone else today.

“And Larry’s parents are on their way. Only to be bombarded with horrible speculations about the life of their son.” Marguerite flicked at the tablecloth again. Her nails were neatly manicured but unpolished.

“I think I could murder the man, I really do.”

Lindy smiled at her, a humorous smile. She didn’t for a minute think Marguerite would ever have to resort to such extreme measures, not with her money and family name.

“I expect there are more efficient ways to deal with Sheriff Grappel,” she suggested.

“Of course I would never do such a thing,” Marguerite said seriously,

“but it’s a satisfying fantasy.” Her shoulders twitched. “Do you know, my dear, he actually had the effrontery to suggest that I had more than an artistic interest in the boys. Quite ridiculous in view of the medical report.”

So that was what set this off, thought Lindy. Grappel had told Marguerite about the postmortem examination. Surely that was 56

Midsummer Murder

crossing over the bounds of police procedure. She remembered the tight-lipped Bill Brandecker who had been involved in her two experiences with murder. He and his policemen friends refused to give out the smallest bit of information.

“Yes,” replied Lindy distractedly. Her thoughts had receded from the immediate problem to the former deaths she had encountered, and the thought of Bill Brandecker, who always sent her mind into overdrive.

“When I pointed this out to him, the man said perhaps that was exactly what caused Larry to kill himself. Suicide! What a deplorable imagination. He even suggested that I was jealous of the way the boys carried on.”

Lindy was taken aback. She couldn’t imagine anyone having the nerve to say something like that to Marguerite Easton.

“I called him a crazy rural throwback.” Marguerite smiled ruefully.

“I don’t know what came over me.” She looked at Lindy for a moment. “He’s taking pleasure in our misfortune. I should have handled him with more finesse.”

“I doubt if he would have recognized finesse if you pronounced it in one syllable,” said Lindy.

“Anyway,” said Biddy looking out the window, “Chi-Chi has taken up where you left off.” She motioned them over. Without a word, they hurried to the window.

Byron Grappel was attempting to get into the driver’s side of the police car. Chi-Chi had taken hold of his sleeve. He turned toward her, his free hand still on the open door. She was doing all the talking, or possibly yelling, the way her body was thrust forward. Grappel just stood there looking sullen.

“Go for it, Chi-Chi,” whispered Biddy.

Chi-Chi stuck a fist toward the sheriff’s face. Lindy heard the intake of Marguerite’s breath behind her. The sheriff grabbed Chi-Chi’s wrist and flung it aside, jumped into the car and slammed the door.

Before Chi-Chi could move, the car jolted into reverse, jerked to a stop, then lurched forward, tires squealing as it disappeared around the side of the house. Chi-Chi watched it leave, then turned and walked back across the parking lot until their view of her was blocked by the roof that covered the delivery entrance.

“Why must men always do that with their cars when they’re angry?” asked Marguerite. “It’s so unimaginative.”

57

Shelley Freydont

* * *

“He’s a mean one, Sheriff Grinch,” countered Lindy. “A man like that would kill his brother,” agreed Biddy.

It was a game they often played, adapting old songs to fit the situation. It had begun years ago out of boredom during the long travel and tech days on tour. In their younger years, they could sing entire conversations without missing a beat. They had picked it up again years later when Lindy had returned to work. Sometimes, it was more soothing than actually tackling a subject directly.

“And while we’re at it,” said Biddy, “how do we solve a problem like—” She stopped singing. “Jeremy.”

“Try to ignore him?”

Biddy expelled air through her lips, a cross between a raspberry and a motor boat. “A little difficult to ignore; he
is
our boss.”

“Yeah, I know. But I do think that if we just give him some space, he’ll pull himself together.”

“Any more space and we’d be in Siberia.”

“At least there wouldn’t be mosquitoes and this hideous humidity in Siberia.”

“Stuart says the weather will clear up and get cooler,” said Biddy.

“Yeah, he told me, too.”

“But to get back to Jeremy . . .”

“I really think things will work themselves out,” said Lindy. “You know how he overreacts to things. This is so important to him. He must be feeling horrible for what Marguerite and Ellis and Chi-Chi and Robert are going through. I bet if we could deep-six Sheriff Grappel, things would get back to normal pretty quickly in spite of this tragedy.”

“You’re right. I just hate to see him angst so much. He always takes responsibility for everyone’s problems. It makes him soooo . . .”

Biddy’s eyes searched the air around her, a habit of hers when she was at a loss for words.

“Repressed?” Lindy finished for her.

“Jeremy isn’t repressed,” said Biddy indignantly. “Just self-contained.”

58

Midsummer Murder

“Do you know something I don’t?” Lindy raised both eyebrows.

“Would you stop that? I don’t know why you insist on playing matchmaker. It isn’t going to happen. Jeremy and I have a perfectly good platonic relationship, at least until this week, and that’s fine with me.”

“If you say so.”

“I do, and anyway, how did we get onto the subject of Jeremy’s love life?”

Lindy shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s such good material.”

“I did learn a little dirt, however.”

“About Jeremy?”

“Yeah. Not about his sex life, but Stuart told me that during Jeremy’s ‘dark years’—” Biddy paused a moment to give Lindy time to come up to speed. Jeremy’s dark years: several years when he had disappeared and fallen into a life of drugs and alcohol brought on by guilt and self-loathing. She nodded to let Biddy know that she was with her.

“That during those years, Marguerite supported him financially.

Stood by him, even though he refused to see her or have any contact with her. Evidently, she had complete faith in his being able to bounce back. And she was right.”

“Wow. Though it doesn’t surprise me. It sounds just like something Marguerite would do. But how did Stuart know about it?”

“Stuart seems to know just about everything that goes on in the Easton family. And he’s not averse to a little gossip.”

“Hmmm.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I think he is Ellis’s friend.” Biddy gave her a knowing look. “You know—his ‘particular’ friend.”

“Particular friend? God, Biddy, have you been reading Victorian novels again?”

Biddy laughed. “No, it’s just the artistic ambiance, but I do have a great Regency romance that you can borrow when I’m finished.

‘Erect shafts’ and ‘throbbing manhoods’ every seventy-five pages like clockwork . . . or if you delete the ‘L’ . . . ”

Lindy shook her head. “Do you know what I love best about touring with you?”

“Please, spare me. Hey, speaking of particular friends, is Glen coming this weekend, or is he going to cancel again?”

59

Shelley Freydont

“So far so good.” A year and a half ago, Glen had been promoted to overseas consultant for the telecommunications firm he worked for. It required a lot of traveling, and he had ended up canceling more of their plans together than he had been able to make. “He has a charity golf tournament at the Clarendon Club on Friday. I’m sure he won’t miss that. Then he’ll come over for the rest of the weekend. You’ll lose your roommate for a couple of nights. Maybe, I
should
borrow that book. So I can ‘bone up’ on the ‘erect shafts’ parts.”

Biddy burst into laughter. “Oh criminy,” she said, looking at her watch. “I didn’t realize it was so late. We’ll have to hurry to get dressed in time for drinks.”

“Drinks? Now there’s an Old World affectation. What happened to

‘cocktails’ or ‘happy hour’?”

Biddy was already heading for the door. “Well, at least you can beg off for a couple of nights and have a romantic dinner for two in the restaurant.”

“Yeah, with half the company looking on.”

“Did you tell him about what happened, yet?”

“You mean Larry Cleveland? Good God, no. He’d be furious if he thinks I’m involved in another death, accident or no. On second thought, maybe he’ll have a satellite disaster, and he’ll have to go to—