Deader Homes and Gardens Part 3

"You have to! It's perfect! I looked at all the houses on the market, and not one of them is anywhere near as s.p.a.cious and secluded and wonderful. Just tell me how much, Mr. Kennedy. You can't sell it to anyone else. You just can't!"

"Oh, I get it. You're not talking about my house in Key West. You're talking about the one in Farberville."

"Obviously," I said, wondering if he had suffered a traumatic head injury that impaired his mind. "Angela told me that you're willing to sell it. How much?"

"Let's take this slowly. Your name is Claire Malloy?" He paused until I acknowledged as much. "I've heard of you. You helped the police in a lot of murder investigations. Winston patronized your bookstore."

"All the more reason to sell me the house in Hollow Valley. Surely Winston would have approved."

"Are you or your husband related to any descendants of Colonel Hollow?"

I uttered an oath under my breath. "No, but I bet a genealogist could find a link somewhere in the past. I'm sure I had a seventeenth cousin somewhere who married a Hollow. Do they have Irish blood?"

"They have no blood, Ms. Malloy. No, I take that back. Winston was a warm, generous man who donated time and energy to charitable organizations. He loved music, art, literature, fine wine, and gourmet dining. He was offered the opportunity to design a set for a major Broadway musical, but he chose to move back to his boyhood home." Terry's voice was quivering with such emotion that his words were slurred. Had he been within reach, I would have patted his hand and blotted his cheeks with the pillowcase hem.

I gave him a brief moment to pull himself together before I said, "You have my warmest condolences. The mere mention of the house must cause you pain. I can understand why you feel it's time to sell it and get on with your life. As I mentioned, Angela showed me the house, but before I could sign an offer, she drove off. No one seems to know where she is."

"Did any of the Hollows know she was showing the house?"

"I have no idea. After Angela left, I spoke to a woman named Nattie. She was surprised to hear the house was for sale."

"It isn't."

My throat tightened. "Angela said that you're willing to sell it. I love the house, and so does my husband. You can't s.n.a.t.c.h it away like this." Desperation overrode morals. "My daughter is so weak from her treatments that she can hardly walk. Her only hope is fresh air and sunshine. If she could lie on a blanket in the meadow while I read to her from the shade of an apple tree, she might improve. Please, Mr. Kennedy. Only you can save her."

"Or Charles d.i.c.kens, presuming your daughter contracted consumption in the workhouse. I need to think about this, Ms. Malloy. I'll call you back this evening."

I retreated to the balcony to wait.

Caron and Peter were briefed on the situation. Peter, who was in Little Rock, offered all the usual plat.i.tudes, sprinkled with endearing remarks, and a.s.sured me that he was frantic to learn what Terry Kennedy said. Caron expressed her solicitude by heading out to a pizza place to meet her friends, one of whom was Joel.

I was perfecting my argument when Terry Kennedy called. "Claire," he began, "if I may call you that, I am willing to discuss the house, but we need to talk in person. I should be in Farberville by late tomorrow afternoon. As soon as I've checked into a motel, I'll call you."

"You're not going to stay at your house?"

There was a long silence. "Maybe I will," he finally said. "It could be interesting. In any case, we'll talk tomorrow. I was so startled by your earlier call that I didn't ask about Angela. She, Winston, and I were friends. You said that she disappeared?"

I told him what I knew, which wasn't much, then said, "Do you have any idea where she could be? She's divorcing Danny and it seems that she forgot all about me."

"Angela will come up with some crazy rationalization. I'll call you tomorrow afternoon."

I tripped over a box of Christmas ornaments as I went to the kitchen to find something for dinner. Ah, the perils of tiptoeing along the fine line between optimism and pessimism.

Caron was still asleep when I left the duplex the following morning. I drove to Angela's house and rang the doorbell, but there was no response. I'd already called Bartleby-King and a.s.sociates; Angela had yet to resume a.s.sociating with them. She had been missing for almost forty-eight hours. It was premature to file a missing persons report. Since I had nothing worthwhile to do until Terry arrived from Key West, I decided to drive out to Hollow Valley on the off-chance she was there-and spend some time in my future home, counting bar stools and examining the bedroom decor.

Twenty minutes later, I turned at the Hollow Valley Nursery sign. Before I reached the driveway to my house, a willowy woman with hair so pale that it wafted around her face and shoulders like a cirrus cloud leaped out into the road and began to pirouette. Her oversized gauzy white shirt rippled like feathers. I hit the brakes before I mowed down the Swan Queen. In response, she wiggled her fingers at me before returning to her invisible lamentation of cygnets.

I tolerated the amateurish production for several minutes, then opened my car window and said, "That was lovely. If you'll be so kind as to move aside, I'll just drive around you and be out of your way."

"You're not bothering me," she trilled as she began hopping about, her arms swaying over her head. "I'm channeling the deities of Litha so we can prepare for the Midsummer's Eve bonfire and the appearance of Juno Luna, the G.o.ddess who blesses women with the privilege of menstruation. Come dance, whoever you are! The sun seeks its zenith. Free yourself and feel the warmth and perfume of nature!"

"Another day, but thank you anyway."

Pandora b.u.t.terfly, or so I presumed, gave me a wee frown. She twirled to a halt and said, "You won't dance with me?"

"I would prefer not to," I said solemnly, then clamped my lips together. A giggle erupted, followed by another and another, until I was sprawled across the front seat, tears streaking down my face, laughing so hard I was in danger of wetting my pants.

Pandora stuck her head inside the car. "Are you okay, lady?"

I stayed where I was until I could present a more dignified visage. She retreated as I sat up, although I could not contain an occasional snort. "I'm okay, and you're okay. You're Pandora, right?"

"Pandora b.u.t.terfly Saraswati," she said. "Who are you?"

"Just one of the minor Litha deities. I thought I'd come by early and examine the site of the bonfire. Last year the Wiccans in Omaha almost burned down an apartment complex."

Her pale blue eyes narrowed. "Are you looking for the nursery? It's a wholesale operation, so you can't buy anything except during the annual sale." Fine wrinkles around her eyes put her in her midthirties, although she probably fancied herself to be an innocent maiden. All she was missing was flowers in her hair.

In that she would be a neighbor of sorts, I got out of the car and said, "I'm Claire Malloy. My husband and I are hoping to buy Winston's house."

"Oh, really? Does the family know it's for sale?"

"I doubt it. It's a lovely house, isn't it?"

She tilted her head and stared at me. "The redness of your aura tells me that you are filled with strength, blending into the yellowness of optimism and enthusiasm. I also see a tinge of orange that indicates vanity. You may be a daunting combatant, Claire, but you must beware. Your aura is in danger of shifting into a fiery red that connotes raw pa.s.sion and ruthlessness."

"Works for me," I said, politely overlooking the reference to vanity. I take pride in my modest, una.s.suming nature. I make it a point never to undermine Peter's masculinity by a.s.serting that I am quite capable of carrying out the trash on a cold night.

Pandora tried a soaring leap that sent her into an oak sapling. She spit out a leaf and said, "Some days my aura is so light I can levitate, but today I am bathed in blue and green. I feel peaceful and nurturing, as well as spiritual. I should go into the woods and listen to the whispers of nature, but I shall wait until dusk. Would you like to come to my house for tea?"

It seemed like as good a plan as any, and she might have information about Terry Kennedy. I parked at the edge of the road, and we walked down her overgrown driveway to what would have been an elegant house had it not been painted in hues of purple and lavender. What would have been an ordinary yard was a maze of vegetable and herb gardens. Two small children were digging a hole; one wore shorts, and the other was naked. Their long, tangled blond hair and crouched poses hid their gender.

"Rainbow and Weevil," Pandora said proudly. "We encourage them to explore their environment without parental restraints. They often sleep outside, but they do appear when they're hungry." She clapped her hands to get their attention. "Come meet our new neighbor! She's a G.o.ddess of Litha."

Unimpressed by my rank, the naked child squatted over the hole while the other watched. After the hole was fertilized, they scampered into the woods. Pandora and I listened to their shrieks until they faded. I regret to say the image lingered in my mind. Had Caron been there, she would have locked herself in the car.

"I don't want to interrupt them," I said sincerely. I didn't want to go inside the purple house, either, since it was likely to reek of patchouli oil (Pandora did). Besides, if Rainbow and Weevil were as casual about body functions inside as they were outside, I wanted more than candlelight before I put my foot down. I sat down on a primitive wooden bench. "I just found out about Winston yesterday. It must have been stressful for the family."

"It was," Pandora said as she sat down beside me. "Ethan was so nervous while the police were here. He was convinced that they would demand to search the greenhouses for marijuana."

"Would they have found some?"

"You haven't met Charles, have you? He'd go ballistic if there was a single pot plant within a mile of the greenhouses. The workmen don't dare smoke cigarettes when he's there. Jordan was so disappointed that I had to dose her with my special green tea with ginseng, herbs, and lemongra.s.s. Would you like some?"

"Why was Ethan nervous?"

Her arms swayed over her head as she began dancing around me, her eyes closed and her lips puckered like a dried rosebud. I was about to trip her when she came to rest. After a few pants, she said, "The poor dear was worried about his exotic plants. He has orchids, bromeliads, corpse lilies, Inca angel trumpets, and other stuff-all legal, but sensitive to light, humidity, and temperature. Some of them are rare and very delicate. When he's not talking about them, he's talking to them." Her head fell back so her face was bathed in sunlight. "Ethan and I are soul mates. We celebrate the earth with our love of all plants, whether they have beautiful blooms or p.r.i.c.kly scales. A blade of gra.s.s is more complex than a play by Shakespeare. When people no longer are allowed to inhabit this glorious planet, the plant kingdom shall reign."

At which time I'd change my name to Violet, a.s.suming I was a beautiful bloom rather than a cactus. "Did the police investigators cause botanical devastation?"

Pandora closed her eyes. "They didn't even mention the greenhouses. They just took photos, asked questions, and waited for the medical examiner. The whole thing was over in an hour." She opened one eye to gauge my reaction. "Not that the family wasn't really upset. We were all fond of Winston, and he was, after all, a Hollow. His mother and Felicia were second cousins, I think. We went to the Old Tavern to comfort ourselves. I was too sad to dance the next day. Ethan told me that some of the ferns had curled in response to our grief. Plants are incredibly sensitive. There's this kind of moss-"

"Terry must have felt horrible that he wasn't there at the time of the death," I said.

"He was in Italy. I don't remember why."

"Winston was fishing when he lost his balance?"

"That's the story," she said as she raised her head. "If someone else had been with him, it could have been averted. No one was, though."

"The article I read claimed that he banged his head while struggling to keep his balance and was unconscious at the time."

Pandora sobered up from the heady drench of sunshine. "Why are you asking all these questions? Just because you want to buy Winston's house doesn't mean you have any business snooping around. Everybody in the family still feels bad about the accident." She stood up and crossed her arms. "Hollow Valley is private property. Until you actually own Winston's house, you're trespa.s.sing!"

Her small tirade reminded me of my exceedingly good reason for trespa.s.sing. "Have you seen Angela Delmond anywhere in the area? She's five-six, short dark hair, designer shoes and handbag, maybe driving a silver SUV."

"No, but this is the first day that I've ventured out of the house since Sunday. I was doing my monthly cleansing fast and restorative meditation. Now that I have rid my body of toxins and swept away the negative energy from the recesses of my psyche, I am free. You are trespa.s.sing."

"I'd best trespa.s.s back to my car," I said. "I hope we can avoid each other in the future. Have a nice day." I walked up the driveway, trying to decide if her act was credible. Despite all her gibberish about the glories of nature, I'd caught a glimpse of calculation. She and Ethan had met at an ashram, according to Nattie. I wondered if the ashram was a haven or a hideout.

When I arrived at my house, I was chagrined to discover that the front door was locked. Peter must have turned the b.u.t.ton on the doork.n.o.b when we left. Or, I thought more brightly, Angela had been back to secure the premises. She could be at home or at her office while I was out beating the bushes for her. Metaphorically, in that I didn't trust nature not to retaliate with a swarm of bees.

I drove to the Old Tavern and parked within the pale of Colonel Hollow's glare. No one was about, but I could hear the m.u.f.fled groans of heavy machinery from the direction of the greenhouses. I was less interested in tractors than I was in monthly cleansing fasts. I used the heavy iron ring to knock on the door. It echoed inside, but no one invited me in for tea. I was walking back to my car when Nattie emerged from behind the house.

"Claire," she called, "what a ... surprise. I was working in the vegetable garden out back. Can I help you with something?"

"I'm still tracking Angela, and I wondered if she might have come back to Hollow Valley."

Nattie wiped her hands on her jeans as she joined me. "Well, if she has, I didn't see her. Would you like a gla.s.s of tea?"

"Spiked with ginseng and lemongra.s.s?"

"I was thinking of Lipton. I gather you've met Pandora b.u.t.terfly. Ethan must have been on drugs when he married her. There're some chairs and a table in the garden. Make yourself comfortable while I make a pitcher of tea."

I strolled around the corner of the Old Tavern. The view was not of an orchard and a meadow. A barn that had once been red was the color of rust. There were two more outbuildings, and beyond them, a truck was rumbling across a bridge. Angela had mentioned that the delivery trucks used a back road. I had no idea how often they came and went, but they would not disrupt the bucolic serenity.

I sat down on an aluminum chair and idly watched the truck disappear into the woods. There were voices in the distance, presumably workmen doing serious things like planting and plucking. I had yet to meet four members of the Hollow family: Ethan, Charles and Felicia Finnelly, and Aunt Margaret Louise. If I was lucky, I might never run into them. I certainly wasn't going to invite them to a housewarming party. Nattie was agreeable. Jordan was a temporary blight. Moses might prove to be a nuisance, but I could handle him.

No, in my fantasy land Peter and I would sit on the terrace while Caron hosted pool parties. In the fall, I'd harvest apples to make applesauce and pies. When the weather turned cold, we'd snuggle in front of a blazing fire with mugs of homemade cider. We'd decorate for Christmas and have parties at which the local literati read poetry or debated politics. Later, Peter and I would sip champagne in the oversized bathtub, listening to mellow jazz and engaging in adult behavior.

I was so caught up in my blissful imagery that I almost fell out of the chair when Nattie said, "I'm so glad that you're moving to Hollow Valley, Claire. It can be lonely out here." She set a tray on the table and poured me a gla.s.s of iced tea. She'd also brought a plate of cinnamon rolls and a bowl of strawberries.

I helped myself to a cinnamon roll. "This is delicious, Nattie."

"I baked them this morning, along with several loaves of bread. As Jordan said, it can be boring out here if you let it be. I bake, garden, and often pack a sandwich and hike around the entire valley. I sketch birds and wildflowers. Yesterday I saw a Canada goose and four goslings. I also write in my journal every day. I've kept one since I was ten."

"Have you always lived here?" I attacked a second cinnamon roll, hoping she would produce a response long enough to let me slowly devour it.

"No, I grew up in a small town in Alabama. I've been back here for fifteen years. I had a difficult time in college. So many demands, all those people pushing and shoving, the promiscuity-it was too much for me. I tried counseling, but the therapist was as bad as the others. My parents were furious when I refused to return after the third year. I found a menial job, but I knew I had to come here, where I would be safe." She made a vague gesture at the wooded slopes. "I spent my summers here. There were several of us cousins about the same age. Ethan, Sheldon, Ruth, Zack, myself, and of course, Winston. We swam in the stream, played hide-and-seek, went on picnics, and lay in the gra.s.s on hot summer nights, waiting for shooting stars. I lived for the summers." Her abrupt laugh startled me. "Reality sucks, doesn't it?"

"Sometimes," I said cautiously. "Once we're here, you can teach me how to make these divine cinnamon rolls. We'll go out to lunch every week."

"We might even have fun," she said, "if I can remember how. I picked the strawberries this morning. Tomorrow I'm going to hunt for blackberries. Are you a birdwatcher?"

"Not yet, but I'm willing to learn." I ate a strawberry while I considered how best to politely interrogate her. "May I ask you about Winston? He had a fatal accident while fishing, didn't he?"

Nattie regarded me over the rim of her gla.s.s. "You must have read the story in the newspaper. Winston was a very talented young man, and we were all saddened by his death. His mother taught high school math, and his father wrote long, wearisome tomes about the Napoleonic Wars. I did my best to read one, but after five hundred pages I was begging for Waterloo. Anyway, we saw very little of Winston after his parents sent him to a prep school in the East. He spent summers at a camp in Michigan or Minnesota. It changed him, turned him against us. During the holidays, he was polite but remote."

"Why do you think he moved back here?" I asked.

She glanced over her shoulder as if Jordan might be hunched behind the tomato plants. "I suspected he had some health problems-mental and physical. Last Christmas, he and Terry turned down my invitation for dinner." She shook her head. "That's understandable, though. I'm sure they had a much better time with pheasant and white wine than they would have had with Felicia's dry turkey, Margaret Louise's lumpy mashed potatoes, Pandora's pickled okra, and a gla.s.s of water. I know I would have."

"Even if he wasn't into the family thing, all of you must have been upset when he died in the fishing accident."

"It wasn't an accident," Nattie said as she popped a strawberry in her mouth.

4.

I choked on a mouthful of tea. Once I'd recovered, I said, "Not an accident?"

Nattie handed me a napkin so I could dry my chin. "The police investigators were happy to write it up that way, and the Hollow family was hardly going to disagree. Out of respect, the report didn't mention the two empty wine bottles. Those, coupled with the marks in the mud, satisfied them that Winston was inebriated when he lost his balance." She reached for the pitcher. "Let me refill your gla.s.s."

"Thank you. It still sounds like an accident, Nattie. If Winston consumed two bottles of wine, he easily could have slipped."

She gazed at the valley for a long while, gnawing her lower lip as though I'd said something profound. "I don't disagree with that, but..."

"But you don't believe it was an accident. Why not?"

"As I said earlier, Winston had problems. When I encouraged him to tell me what was going on, he was evasive. At first I thought he was missing his former life in New York City. Farberville isn't exactly a hotbed of artistic excitement, and it must have been a devastating culture shock for him. Some people aren't meant to live in the countryside, where the loudest noises come from starlings and bullfrogs. I occasionally caught him during the remodeling, and he told me that he missed the clamor of garbage trucks, the incessant sirens, the honking horns, the kamikaze cabs, and the daily parade of pedestrians."

I heard something that was neither avian nor amphibian. "What's that thumping noise?"

She listened for a second and then said, "The clothes dryer in the bas.e.m.e.nt. It's twenty years old and about to expire any day now. The washing machine sounds as if it's about to explode. Moses has a medical condition that causes him to change clothes often. He ... uh, leaks."

I was sorry that I'd asked, and even sorrier that she'd answered. "Tell me more about Winston."

"When the house was finished, he and Terry invited all of us to a party. Felicia was apoplectic about the quant.i.ty of alcoholic beverages, and she and Charles stalked off after half an hour. In truth, it was uncomfortable for all the family members. The boys continued to have boisterous parties every week or so. I could hear them from the Old Tavern. However, the parties became less frequent and then stopped. I would run into Winston wandering in the woods, his shoulders slumped and his eyes dull. He seemed to become more depressed over the three years. The last time I saw him, he was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, staring at the ground. That was in early March. I was concerned because it was cold and he wasn't wearing a coat or gloves. He wouldn't even acknowledge my presence. I felt so helpless."