18 Deader Homes and Gardens (2 page)

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Two days later, Angela called, and an hour later, I was in her car. “I am so excited!” she chirped like a sparrow on caffeine. “I know you’ll love the house. It’s perfect for you! Privacy, a lovely yard with a garden, four bedrooms, and four bathrooms. Although it was built in the eighteen-nineties, it was remodeled and updated three years ago. That’s when the pool was put in. It comes with ten acres that slope down to a river. There’s an apple orchard and a lovely view of the entire valley. As for the price—well, it’s well below market value. I’d buy it myself if it weren’t for this horrendous mess with Danny and his slut.”

“Why isn’t it on the market?” I asked.

“It’s all very complicated, but nothing we girls need to worry about. My broker has experience with estate and probate issues.”

“The owner is dead?” I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe in paperwork. When an elderly uncle had died intestate, other family members had come out of the baseboards to sue each other for years while their lawyers drained the assets. “One of Us Girls doesn’t want to fall in love with something that’s unobtainable.” And Caron claims I never listen to her.

Angela, who’d endured several days with Caron’s backseat commentaries, laughed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

We drove to the north edge of Farberville and turned onto a blacktop road. A sign proclaimed the proximity of Hollow Valley Nursery. “As in small children?” I asked warily, imagining them darting around the woods like snotty-nosed elves.

“Trees and shrubs and flowers, but strictly wholesale. Well, they do have one sale in the autumn. I bought some red maples a year ago, and they’re doing well. I’d planned to put in a row of crepe myrtles, but Danny’s trying to force the sale of our house. Damned if I’m going to have work done in someone else’s garden! He had the nerve to call this morning to tell me that he’s taking that bimbo to our lake house this weekend. Can you imagine? I’d rather burn it down than have her sunbathing on my deck!” She ground her foot on the gas pedal as if it were the bimbo’s face. Or Danny’s.

I clutched my purse as we bounced over a pothole. I noticed a driveway on the right as Angela spun onto a narrow gravel road on the left. It wound through a wooded patch to the front of the purportedly perfect house. Which was, based on my first glimpse, darn close to perfect.

The house had the allure of a late nineteenth-century gingerbread manor, with gray siding and painted shingles and whimsical white trim. The front door had a transom, and the veranda stretched across the width of the front. A porch swing swayed in the breeze. Forsythia and japonicas bloomed in meticulously random beds. The trees soared beyond the second floor. Angela unlocked the front door. “It may be musty,” she said. “I try to come out here to air it out, but with all these lawyer’s appointments…” She continued talking, but I stopped listening.

In keeping with its Victorian heritage, the ceilings were fifteen feet high and trimmed with crown molding. Hardwood floors glistened. The living room was spacious and sunny. Centered on one wall was a native stone fireplace, with a mantel that supported brass candlesticks and a clock with a pendulum. French doors led to a terrace. The furniture looked as if it had been selected by a very adept designer who’d mixed period pieces with more contemporary styles. There were blank spaces on the walls where art had been hung.

Angela nudged me through a doorway into a dining room with an antique mahogany table and eight chairs. The crystal chandelier sparkled wickedly. “The furniture comes with the house—unless you don’t want it. I’m sure we can find a thrift store to take it.”

My mind was darting too quickly to reply. The kitchen had glistening appliances, a refrigerator large enough to stash a body, and a gas cooktop out of a four-star restaurant. I knew this only because I’d been flipping through magazines featuring the transformation of woodsheds to Tuscan villas with a few gallons of paint and fabric swatches. If I learned how to turn on the appliances, friends could sit at the immense marbletop island and watch me char vegetables and flambé turkeys.

Angela and I continued into the master suite, which was the size of my duplex, give or take a few square feet. The king-sized bed was covered by a ripply white silk spread with matching pillow shams. Another set of French doors led to the back terrace. His and hers dressing rooms, a marble bathroom with a complicated shower, a spacious bathtub, skylights, and heated towel racks. The library at the front of the house had floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a ladder on wheels (be still my heart!), and a serious desk where Important Things Could Take Place.

“You’re beaming like a baby,” Angela said.

I tried to compose myself. “What’s upstairs?”

We toured three bedrooms, all large and sunny. One had a balcony that would suit a certain person who fancied herself as Lady Macbeth one day and Juliet Capulet the next. It also had a private bathroom with a Jacuzzi. A fourth room would serve nicely as another office, should I decide to write my memoirs—or a sewing room should I be struck in the head by lightning.

As we went downstairs, Angela’s cell phone rang. She looked at it, grimaced, and in a curt voice said, “Go have a look at the garden and the pool. The apple orchard is farther beyond.”

I left her hissing into her phone and went outside. The terrace was made of worn bricks in a herringbone pattern. The metal table, chairs, chaise lounge, and glider were nineteen-fifties retro in cheerful colors echoed by flowers and ornamental trees. A lovely place to sip a little something and watch the sunset (if my mental compass was accurate). I continued to the pool, which had a few leaves and sticks in the deep end. It wasn’t Olympic sized, but there was a decent chance it was as large as that of Caron’s nemesis, Rhonda Maguire.

The apple orchard had been there for decades; limbs were gnarled but strong enough to support the abundance of small green apples. The grass between the rows of trees was green and freshly mowed. The aroma was intoxicating. I continued to the far end, where a meadow led down to a lazy stream. Clumps of trees created shady patches that begged for a quilt, a picnic hamper, and a slim volume of poetry.

Indeed, it was the perfect house—if it was available. Even if it wasn’t available, I thought morosely as I walked back to the terrace, it was the perfect house.

Angela was not waiting outside, so I opened the French doors and called her name. I looked in the kitchen, living room, dining room, and master suite. She was not in any of the upstairs rooms, including the bathrooms. I came down the stairs slowly, more irritated than concerned. Irritation turned into annoyance when I opened the front door and saw that her car was no longer there. At least I could stop searching for her, I told myself as I glared at the vacated space. Why on earth would she have driven off, effectively stranding me? To give me time to admire the placement of the linen closet? To stare in awe at the cabinets above the marble countertops? To dance with glee in the laundry room?

I harrumphed for a few more minutes, then went back inside. I’d left my purse in the kitchen, and I was trying to recall if I’d brought my cell phone when I reached the doorway—and froze.

The man standing in front of the refrigerator beamed at me. “Why, hello, hello. You’re early, but do come in and have a seat. Do come in and have a seat. I was about to open a bottle of very nice Bordeaux. Will you join me? Won’t you join me?” He waved a corkscrew at me.

I kept my distance. He appeared to be well over eighty years old, with etched wrinkles, liverish blotches, a nose ineptly carved out of blood sausage, and floppy wet lips. A grungy baseball cap covered most of his bald head. He wore a bowtie and a loosely tied plaid bathrobe.

“I am,” the man continued as he took a bottle of wine out of the rack and attacked it with the corkscrew, “Moses Hollow, great-great-grandson of Colonel Moses Ambrose Hollow, who bought this valley in eighteen sixty-six from President Ulysses S. Grant, despite being a colonel in the CSA. There may have been some funny business with the paperwork.” He cackled as he filled two wineglasses and pushed one across the island. “A thousand acres of prime hardwood. Ol’ Moses built hisself a lumber mill and made out like a bandit during Reconstruction. Let’s toast Colonel Moses Ambrose Hollow!” When I failed to comply, he gave me a disgruntled look. “You a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union? Why, when I wasn’t more than eight years old, I’d go in the wagon with my grandpappy to deliver moonshine to the local saloons. Dodged the revenuers, Grandpappy and I did. Dangerous business, Grandpappy used to say when he was sober. Dangerous business.”

His expression was darkening, so I picked up the glass of wine and took a swallow. “This is a lovely Bordeaux.” I wasn’t afraid of him, since I could topple him with one finger; I was curious. Also stuck at the house until Angela returned from her errand or whatever. “So you live in the valley?”

He turned around to open the refrigerator. He stuck his head so far inside that I wondered if he intended to find a nesting spot, but he emerged with a round wooden box of Brie and a bag of grapes. He located a cutting board, a knife, and a box of crackers. “Where do you think I live? Chattanooga? Chattanooga-choo-choo?”

I was quite sure a dormouse would waddle out of the microwave and request a cup of tea from the man, who was mad if not the Mad Hatter incarnate. “How many members of the Hollow family live here?” I asked.

He stuffed half a dozen grapes in his mouth and chewed vigorously. “Hard to say,” he mumbled as grape pulp dribbled out of the corners of his mouth. “Moses had three daughters and seven sons. Five of the boys survived and got two hundred acres each, but a lot of it got sold over the years. These days most of it’s for the greenhouses. Big greenhouses. Acres of greenhouses. I keep waiting for brimstone to hail down, so’s all those pompous asses will find out what happens to people who live in glass houses. Or earn their living from them, anyhow.” He drank the remaining wine from the bottle, belched, and ducked out of sight. “I tried to warn him, you know, but he thought I was a fool,” his voice continued.

“Warn whom?”

“Love can be lethal. Even a fool knows that.”

I stealthily opened my purse and took out my cell phone. Since I rarely used it, I rarely remembered to charge it. Peter insisted that I carry it, but he and Caron had long since stopped bothering to call me on it. Amazingly, life went on. At this point, however, I was disappointed to note that only electronic resuscitation could help it rise from the dead.

Moses had no such problem. He popped up from the far side of the island, holding another bottle of wine. “Let’s try the merlot, shall we? My dear, you haven’t touched the cheese and crackers. If we’re going to continue our wine-tasting adventure, you really should eat something. We don’t want to get tipsy, do we?”

He seemed to be more dedicated to getting sloshed. I said, “Merlot will be fine. If you’ll excuse me for a moment…” I left before he could refuse to excuse me. There were no landlines in the rooms downstairs or upstairs. I peered out a window in case Angela might be parking in the driveway. Alas, she was not. Reminding myself that sobriety was my only hope of survival, I returned to the kitchen. The merlot bottle was half empty. I followed a trail of cracker crumbs to the living room, where I found Moses asleep on a wide leather sofa.

The situation was ludicrous, I decided as I went into the kitchen for Brie, crackers, and a glass of wine. I took my bounty out to the front porch and sat in the swing. Angela’s phone call must have involved Danny, although if she was on the way to their lake house, I might have a lengthy wait. By no means was I panicky. Other people lived in Hollow Valley, some of whom operated a successful business. They might even have phones.

I decided to give Angela half an hour to reappear before I pondered my next move. I wandered around the yard, admiring the elegant simplicity of the landscaping. It helped, I supposed, to have a nursery nearby. Pine bark mulch kept the beds free of weeds, and even though the house was vacant, the grass was mown. I straightened up and eyed the house. It was whispering seductively to me, encouraging me to put my books in the library and my favorite bits of pottery on the mantel in the living room. Peter would have room to hang up his silk ties and align his Italian shoes on a shelf in his dressing room. Caron could have pool parties under my diligent yet dignified supervision. Cocktail parties on the terrace, and formal dinners abuzz with witty repartee and the clink of crystal (catered, of course).

Peter and Caron might object to the minor commute into Farberville’s downtown area. I would suggest that they live in one of the generic houses and visit me on weekends and holidays. If Angela couldn’t convince the buyer to sign over the house, my revenge would make her divorce seem like springtime in Paris.

It was approaching the time to take action of some sort. Unless Angela had communicated with her office, she was the only other person (besides Moses and me) who knew where I was. I wasn’t all that sure myself. Hollow Valley had been inhabited since the post–Civil War era, but I’d been in Farberville for twenty years and I’d never heard of it.

Moses had rolled over but was still breathing. I picked up my purse and headed down the lane that led to the paved road. I did so at a leisurely pace, listening to birds and keeping an eye out for snakes and other evils that lurk in the darker fringe of nature. I was alarmed when a woman popped out from an unseen path. She was trim, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and had a frizzy brown ponytail restrained by a shoelace, and a broad face.

“Oops, I hope I didn’t startle you,” she said.

“I hope I didn’t startle you.”

“Nothing could startle me around here,” she said, laughing. “I’m Natalie Hollow-Brown, but please call me Nattie. And you?”

“Claire Malloy. I came here with a real estate saleswoman to look at the house. Now she’s vanished and I’m stranded.”

Nattie raised her eyebrows. “Winston’s house is on the market?”

“I’m not sure about its status, but Angela told me that she spoke to the owner.”