Waltz Macabre Page 14

  Jasper was looking at him dully. “Garrison Carteret murdered Barclay Lodge. Everybody knows that.”

  “We have another theory,” Michael said.

  Jasper looked exhausted by then, and he stood up, saying, “Who cares? They’re dead. Let the dead rest.”

  “That’s just it,” I said, rising to stand beside him. “They won’t rest.”

  “Oh, yeah. I heard. It’s all over town. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. But if we don’t manage to figure it out, The Bookery is closed forever.”

  “Evil comes from evil,” he said. “And the evil has come down on Barnabas, who’s a saint if I ever met one. He’s a good man. I can’t go near that place; he’s playing that waltz. He has to stop it. You tell him so, Miss Taylor. Tell him to take that music and burn it, and never play that thing again. He’s gotten himself into it somehow, and when that music is played, he comes to life again and comes back to dance.”

  “Garrison Carteret?”

  “The murderer,” Jasper said after a firm nod. “Murderers don’t rest, but you don’t have to give them a place in your home. Throw the beast into the pit and let him burn, I say. You know how to do it. You have the cat and the sight and the secret ways.”

  “Jasper, I don’t have ‘the sight.’”

  He withdrew himself from me, looking into my eyes the whole time. “Now who’s telling lies?”

  He headed for the office door, and Michael called after him, “Why don’t you take the day off, Jasper. I know this has been upsetting you.”

  “Work is what I need, Mr. Utley, and work is what I’ll do.”

  He left.

  * * * * *

  I felt exhausted, and dropped back into my chair.

  Michael’s eyes were even brighter than usual. “Now that’s what I call progress,” he said.

  “I don’t know, Michael. What have we really found out? That as Jasper’s grandfather lay dying, he had horrible visions and talked about them. Were they true? And if they were, who did he bury?”

  Michael sat forward. “They had to be true. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Jasper’s father talked about burying a man exactly where one was uncovered by a hurricane almost ninety years later? We know what Jasper told us: that his father buried a murdered man, and that he would only have done something like that for the Carterets.”

  “Jasper’s father was a handyman. He probably worked for a lot of families hereabouts. And he buried the body on Cadbury land.”

  “If you murdered someone, would you bury the body in your own backyard? The Carterets were running a plantation. Sooner or later the secret burial ground might have been cultivated and the body found. But right next door was the Cadbury estate, which was a rich man’s country retreat. Kingsley Cadbury might have done a little hunting on his land, but he never intended to farm it.”

  “Are you going to tell the sheriff?”

  “I have to, but I don’t think he’ll get anything out of Jasper beyond what he’s already told us. That’s all he knows. You saw him. If he knew anything else, he’d have told us.”

  I nodded, dispirited.

  “I thought you’d be happy,” Michael said. “We’re finally getting somewhere.”

  “You’re right. I think we are.” But I was having a hard time looking or feeling excited about it. “Listen, I completely forgot. I promised to get Porter and bring him to Wanda’s house. They need a watchdog.”

  I quickly caught him up on the doings at Wanda’s house, and described Clay to him.

  “Not that that has anything to do with this,” I added. I still had a strange feeling of malaise, and it showed.

  “Maybe it does. Clay comes from an old established Tropical Breeze family. It seems to me his people were involved with farming around here, too. I’ve never met him, but it seems to me my father and grandfather did some work for Clay’s family. What did you say his last name was?”

  “Brownlee.”

  “That’s right. I’m going to have another look in the archives. There might be something there.”

  “Well, I’ve got stuff to do.”

  “Wait. Before you go, I got some new information at the clubhouse today about our skinny friend. They’re doing DNA on him, and they’ve gone off half-cocked with the theory that the body is that of Garrison Carteret. They think he never disappeared at all; that he was murdered and buried right there on the property, possibly in revenge for the murder of Barclay Lodge. Of course, we know that he went to New York afterward, so it can’t be him. Still, they’ve already sent the sample to the lab, so we’ll see what happens when they do the comparison with Robin Carteret. You and I already know it won’t be a match, but maybe it’ll tell us something. And they have the cause of death: whoever he was, he was shot to death. The bullet was found underneath the area where his heart would’ve been.”

  I thought about it. “How did Myrtle say the Lodge fellow was murdered? Shot, right?”

  His ice-blue eyes glowed. “Shot in the heart. An eye for an eye, so to speak.”

  It was getting too complicated for me. I stood up and said, “I’m going out to Orphans of the Storm to get Porter. Wish me luck.”

  He chuckled. “Just don’t let him sit in the passenger seat. He’ll end up in your lap.”

  “’Sit’ is not in his vocabulary, and I’m not moving my SUV until that dog is locked up in a crate. By the way, where’s Bastet? I put some food down for her, but she didn’t come. I haven’t seen her since I got here.”

  “She’s pouting. I fed her when I got up this morning and she ate, but after that she put her nose up in the air and strutted away with utter disdain. She’s been treating me like that ever since.”

  “Welcome to my world. If she were really a goddess, I’d be bracing myself for lightning bolts. What did you do to deserve this? I can never get spare change out of her, but you’re usually her favorite minion.”

  He spread his hands. “I haven’t done anything, except to move her into town for a few days, and I’ve done that before. She’s always enjoyed the change of scenery. I don’t know what’s different about this time.”

  “I think I might.” I was gazing at the desk, which was still covered with pages from Gordon’s secret file.

  He followed my gaze, then looked back at me. “So you’re buying into Ed’s theory now?”

  “What’s Ed got to do with this?”

  “Ed thinks she’s a goddess, and speaking of minions, you’re still number one, according to Ed. Bastet started to get an attitude toward you right after you got involved in Barnabas’s problems, am I right?”

  “Yes. And now I’ve got you involved, and she’s unhappy with the both of us.”

  “Do you think she’s trying to warn us off?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said, glancing out the office door to the hallway. “She might just not like us being distracted by something that doesn’t interest her. She’s kind of a brat.” I actually lowered my voice when I said that, as if I was afraid she’d hear. When I realized what I’d done, I deliberately raised my voice and repeated it.

  Michael shushed me down, smiling but not exactly joking. “Hey, watch it. After all, she is a goddess, remember.”

  We gave one another little smiles as if we were sharing a joke, but we weren’t exactly grinning.

  Chapter 20

  Porter’s long-term memory, like that of many dogs, reaches all the way back about five minutes. So when he saw me coming at Orphans, he flipped. Literally. As far as he could remember, he hadn’t seen me in years. The joy was too awesome to be contained by his fur, and he seemed about to burst out of it. I hadn’t intended to let him manipulate me, but let’s be honest, the way they greet us is part of why we love them so. It’s love from a fire hose; you can’t drink it all in, but it puts out whatever fires you’ve come through on your way home. You just gotta love them back.

  So I put up with a few take-downs in the grass and a lot of slobber on my face an
d just let myself be a dog for a moment, too. Then I told Carlene that the star boarder was going downtown for a few days, and packed him into the crate for a ride. He was thrilled. He didn’t know where we were going, but he couldn’t wait to get there.

  When I got back to Wanda’s house, I had to park a few doors down because there were other cars on the street. As I got out, another car pulled in just ahead of mine.

  A rangy blond woman, tall, like me, my age or a little bit older, got out of the car and looked over my way with neighborly interest. Then she looked a little harder and started toward me, staring but looking friendly.

  “Aren’t you that lady who runs the animal shelter outside of town? Taylor . . . Taylor . . .?”

  I held out my hand to shake. “Taylor Verone.”

  “I’ve always wanted to tell you how much I admire your work. I’m Ginny Carteret. I live in that house,” she added, pointing to the mansion next to Wanda’s, the one with the “For Sale” sign. “Are you delivering a dog to somebody?”

  “I’m bringing this handsome fellow to Wanda Wickert for a few days.”

  “She’s adopting a dog? We were all so shocked and sad about Alison. I’m not surprised she wants a little companion. My goodness,” she added once she got a load of Porter. “Little isn’t the word, is it?”

  “No, it sure isn’t. And she’s actually not adopting him.” By then I was hitching Porter up for the trip to Wanda’s door. “He’s by way of being a celebrity, and his human is staying with Wanda.”

  “Yes, I heard. The ghost guy.”

  “Yeah, he’s got a reality show. Ginny, I want you to meet Porter, the Ghost-Sniffing Dog.”

  Porter, unaccountably, behaved himself. He sat pretty and lifted his paw. It would never have occurred to me that Teddy was teaching him tricks. Somebody in his puppyhood must have taught him this, before we all got to know him better and gave up.

  Charmed, Ginny stooped and shook his paw, and Porter panted loudly at her, grinning fiercely.

  When she stood up again, she had a pensive look on her face and seemed hesitant. “Look, over the years, Wanda and I . . . there have been some misunderstandings. I joined the searches, looking for Alison, but I don’t think she knows that. For a long time now, I’ve wanted to . . . do you think I could come in with you and talk to her? I never gave her my condolences, though I sent an arrangement to her memorial service. She never acknowledged it,” she added quietly.

  I didn’t know what to do. I’m all for reconciliations, but I didn’t know how deep the divide had been, and I didn’t want to put Wanda on the spot.

  “Why don’t you just come to the door with me and talk to her,” I said. “You could at least say how sorry you are about Alison, and with me and Porter there, she probably won’t snub you.”

  “Thanks.”

  On the way up to the front door, she talked nervously. “I’ve just been to the nursing home to visit my father. He’s only been there a few weeks, and I’m trying to get over there every day to see him. It’s a lovely place, but he hates it. He wants to come home. They all want to come home. But as you can see, it won’t be our home for much longer. He refuses to accept it, but I have to let it go. I’m getting an apartment, and even if I had the room, there’s no way I can give him the care he needs. I just don’t have the skills. Still, I always come away from visiting him feeling like a wet rag. Like a guilty wet rag,” she added.

  “It must be hard. I’m afraid I never faced that problem; my parents died when I was a young woman. That was bad enough, but at least I never had to try to figure out what to do with them once I could no longer care for them.”

  By then we were at the door, and Wanda opened it without smiling. She’d seen us coming from the window and was wary of Ginny. She told her hello in a reserved voice, and Ginny began to babble.

  There were apologies, explanations, emotional upheavals, and she summed it all up by pointing out that a daughter’s death and a father’s “incarceration” should be enough to put everybody’s perspectives in order. “I know I’m moving away soon, so I suppose you could say I’ve left it for awfully late in the day, but I hope we can be friends. I just didn’t want to leave the neighborhood without saying that.”

  Wanda’s face softened as Ginny talked, and at some point, her eyes became moist. When Ginny ran out of things to say, Wanda touched her arm and said, “Come on in, Ginny. Let’s have tea, and we’ll have a good, long talk.”

  Porter, for once, seemed forgotten. If I hadn’t caught the screen door, it would have shut in our faces. While I held the door open, I looked down at him and he looked up at me, and I was surprised by the empathy in his tough old face. I don’t know why I’m always surprised at how well they understand us.

  “They’ll be all right,” I told him. “Let’s go in and find Teddy.”

  The tongue flopped out and the panting resumed, and he was ready to play again.

  * * * * *

  Porter snuffled and waddled along the floor picking up Teddy’s scent and tracking him to his lair, back in Alison’s bedroom, probably napping. The moment of reunion was loud and unstructured, and at one point I heard something fall heavily to the floor, though I didn’t hear glass breaking, so hopefully nothing valuable was destroyed. Teddy didn’t come out to see us, and that suited me fine. I decided to referee the other reunion, though it seemed to be going well on its own. Wanda poured out some tea for me without getting up, and they kept up their conversation without a pause as I got myself seated.

  “You had to understand my grandmother,” Ginny was saying. “I knew how to handle her, of course, but . . . .”

  “You were her only grandchild,” Wanda said. “I’m sure she just loved you to pieces.”

  Ginny looked down into her teacup. “I figured out how to handle her. Let’s just leave it at that. She had an unhappy life. She was unlucky in love and unlucky in business, too.”

  Wanda was nodding. “I know something of the story.”

  “Oh, everybody does,” Ginny said wearily. “It’s kind of a legend around here. The murdered, sainted lover, the blackguard of a husband who deserted wife and child, the cheating estate agent that finally drove us off the plantation. Everybody knows and nobody knows. Nobody really knows the truth.”

  Wanda and I perked up our ears, shooting one another startled glances. Neither of us had the nerve to pry further, but prying wasn’t necessary. In a storytelling voice, Ginny went on.

  “Those things were never spoken of in our house, of course, but I accidentally found out on my own, after she died. She lived in the master suite, the best rooms in the house, and my father didn’t want them, so I moved into them. I’d still been using the bedroom I’d had as a child, and I was in my mid-30’s by then. I decided to spread myself out a little. While I was moving my things into her room, I found her diaries. You know, the old leather-bound five-year diaries they were still selling when we were kids? Only Grandmother didn’t stay within the lines, or even the days. She wrote as much as she needed to write, no matter how many days’ worth of pages it took. The diaries went all the way back to that time in her life. You know, back to when my grandfather left. She was distraught, and she had nobody to talk to, so she poured it all out in her diary.”

  I couldn’t stifle an exclamation. She looked at me, and I quickly said, “It would be a great gift to the community for you to donate them to the Historical Society, or even to Barnabas Elgin, if you’d like to keep them more private. You know he has archives on the history of Tropical Breeze going back to his great-grandfather’s time. He would make sure they were kept under lock and key for any length of time you specified. With his sense of honor, he wouldn’t even read them himself. I can understand your wanting to keep them in your possession, but my goodness, think of their historical value. Perhaps . . . a provision in your will? And if it would help clear things up about the events surrounding your grandfather’s, er, departure . . . .”

  She was staring at me levelly in a way th
at made me realize I’d gone too far. I could tell she suddenly wanted to backtrack. After a very uncomfortable moment, she said, “I suppose you’re right. But not now. Not while my father and I are still alive. We’re still very much affected by what happened back then.”

  “Of course,” I said a bit too vigorously, relieved I hadn’t got myself tangled up with Ginny. After all, I’d just met the woman; I didn’t know her well enough to be giving her advice on her will. “History matters, though, and if your grandfather was innocent, it matters even more.”

  “Innocent,” she repeated. She looked around the table, gathering us in. “We’re all old enough to know that nothing is black or white. We live in the gray zones. Innocent can be a relative term.”

  I didn’t agree. At least not when it came to murder. But I’d been pushy enough already, so I just nodded.

  “Still,” Wanda said virtuously, “one needs to study history, especially the history of one’s own people. That way, we can avoid making the same mistakes they did. And your grandmother’s diary would give us such wonderful insight into the day-to-day life of the people who lived here before us, and the problems that they had.”

  “So we could learn what?” Ginny said. “It’s impossible to learn from other people’s mistakes, that I’m sure of. Every generation thinks it knows better, but history keeps repeating itself anyway. For some reason, we keep on making the same mistakes. But are they really mistakes? Do we actually have any choice?”

  “How pessimistic you are,” Wanda said. “I prefer to believe that you can make things better. You just have to have the will to do it.”

  Ginny quietly said, “I suppose that makes you happier, so I won’t try to talk you out of it. For me, there haven’t been many real choices.”

  Before we could stray too far from the diary, I had to ask her just one question. “You mentioned the estate agent that cheated your grandmother. Do you know what his name was?”