Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (v1.2) (38 page)

Agatha Christie could have planned an entire murder mystery novel to take place in this one room of the old mansion, and never run out of descriptive phrases. Somber. Bloodred velvet drapes. Dark, heavily carved furniture from another age, one best forgotten. The overall musky smell of old age.

The victim’s body laid out for viewing.

“It looks like I’m already too late. He is dead, right?” Grady asked the butler, Dickens. (Now
there
was a coincidence Grady could hang his hat on.)

“No, sir. Mr. Peevers most certainly is not deceased,” Dickens intoned severely, his expression a reprimand— directed toward him or Peevers, Grady didn’t know. The old guy, nearly as ancient as Archie Peevers, Grady decided—which was, figuring conservatively, as old as dirt—was really into this butler thing. Dickens actually wore a black tuxedo complete with starched white collared shirt and tails.

Tall, nearly as tall as Grady at six feet, two inches, the butler had the build and posture of a Marine drill sergeant and a voice so deep Grady was tempted to call him “Lurch.” If it hadn’t been for the man’s mop of silver hair, and the fact that Grady believed the old guy could probably slam dunk him without raising a sweat, he might even have said so out loud.

“He’s not dead? Well, I’ll give him this: He does a damn good impression of dead,” Grady responded instead, still coolly looking at Archie Peevers, who still hadn’t moved. He just lay there, jackknifed against about a dozen pillows, his long, bony fingers crossed over his chest, his nearly colorless gray eyes staring unblinkingly in the general direction of the foyer, his skeletal body barely visible beneath the covers.

“I don’t want to sound like a bad comedian—but how can you tell? Do you have a mirror you can hold up to his mouth to see if he’s still breathing?”

At Grady’s last question, the corpse blinked. Then it grinned, which was worse, as the fine set of dazzling white dentures had been made for a much younger and fuller face. “Gets ‘em every time, don’t it, Dickens?” Archie Peevers cackled as he sat up. Not laughed, cackled. Grady knew the difference. In fact, if the old fart laid an egg, it wouldn’t have surprised Grady even a little bit.

“We were playing possum, were we? How very naughty of you, sir,” Grady said, his own tone caught halfway between sarcasm and deliberate condescension toward the batty old man in the bed. Oh, okay. So it was all sarcasm. Grady hadn’t been happy to be dragged all the way from Philadelphia to the Peevers Mansion just outside Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on such short notice.

It was Wednesday, for one thing, two days earlier than he thought he was supposed to have reported for the job. Grady’s day on the golf course. It was September, and hot as hell, for another. But here he was, and here he’d be staying for about a month, if the contract he’d signed with the Peevers lawyer, Jefferson Banning, couldn’t be broken.

“No, smart ass, we were checking
you
out,” Archie snapped back at him. “Don’t want me a bodyguard who pisses his pants the first time he’s tossed a small shock, ain’t that right, Dickens? Now come here, come here, or do you expect me to keep shouting at you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Grady said, shaking his head. “Sorry, but you jolly boys are just going to have to find yourself another straight man.” He turned to Dickens, who looked ready to grab him in a half nelson. “I’ll find my own way out, okay?”

“Oh, shit on it!” Archie shouted, and Grady watched as the supposedly dying old man threw back the covers and aimed his bare, skinny, blue-veined legs and feet toward the floor. “Who told me you could take a joke? Quinn somebody. Can see how wrong he was. What’s your idea of funny, boy? Milton Berle in a dress?”

At the mention of his partner’s name, Grady stopped in the process of turning his back on the eccentric millionaire and turned back to watch the walking cadaver all but skip across the room. Archie Peevers was suddenly the vision of good health, if not the sort any sane editor would advertise on the cover of a better health magazine.

Grady did a quick inventory of his recollections concerning the Peevers job. He was to come to the Peevers Mansion, camp out there for a few weeks, assure some nutty old bird that his relatives weren’t trying to kill him for his money. Simple job. Almost kindergarten level, plus moving him out of the city during the hottest days of late summer. Piece of cake. Walk in the park.

Except that he now knew Quinn had been a part of it. Quinn, whom he’d pretty much trapped into an assignment a few months ago. Quinn, who should be over the moon about how well that assignment worked out—considering he was just back from his honeymoon with the subject of his assignment.

But that was just like Quinn. He’d promised to get even with Grady, and Quinn always kept his promises. Grady could see it now. Jefferson Banning had contacted D & S, talked with Quinn, and Quinn had sicced him on his unsuspecting partner and good friend, telling the lawyer not to mention his name.

No wonder Maisie, their receptionist, and the person who really ran D & S, had asked if she could please, please come along for the ride, even offering to make the job part of her vacation time. She probably had a video camera tucked away in her luggage, already planning the entertainment at the office’s annual Christmas party.

Okay, so he’d wring Quinn’s neck once this was over. And maybe Maisie’s, too, as it was her job to screen the nut case jobs at the door.

Still, he asked. Just to be sure.

“You talked to my partner in D & S? You talked to Quinn Delaney? I thought your representative had come straight to me with his proposition.”

Archie raised one extremely long, gnarled index finger, poking it in the air above his head.
“Exactly
my point, sonny! Who can’t you trust? The ones closest to you— that’s who. Your nearest and dearest, and all that crap. Which is why you’re here, remember?”

“Because you think your relatives are out to kill you. Gee, I can’t imagine why—you’re such a sweet old fart,” Grady said, walking past the toilet paper king and sitting down in one of the bloodred velvet high-backed chairs in front of the cold fireplace. “And you want me to watch your back while I also sort through those same relatives, figuring out which one of them has the guts to really sneak in here and slit your throat or whatever.”

“Ha! None of them has the guts to do that, sonny. Poison. That’s what I think. Poison, pills, a midnight toss down the stairs. Something low and sneaky. Which is why I have a plan of my own. You may be good, sonny, but I’m better, and it’s my life we’re trying to save, remember. Dickens, show him my plan,” Archie said as he skipped back across the room in his knee-length nightshirt and hopped back into bed.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Peevers,” Dickens said, bowing from the waist like a character in an old English movie. He crossed the room to a huge chest of drawers, put one white-gloved hand on each ornate brass pull, and slid open a drawer, reaching inside to take out a thin manila envelope.

Grady took the envelope from the man’s outstretched hand, one eloquent eyebrow raised as the butler backed away and took up his position against one wall, his gloved hands folded in front of him as he stared into the middle distance. Grady made a mental note to check under the guy’s tails, just to see if he could find the spot where Peevers inserted the wind-up key.

He turned the envelope over a few times, still debating whether he really wanted to be here, and then he opened it, dumping its contents on his lap.

“Who’s this?” he asked, picking up the photograph of a young woman. A smiling young woman caught somewhere between the ages of twenty and twenty-five. A woman with coal black hair and gray eyes. Nearly colorless gray eyes. Wise-ass eyes. A wise-ass smile. Nobody’s fool, this woman, and yet he doubted anyone else would see that. All they’d see was a beautiful woman. Grady saw a
smart,
beautiful woman. Not his type at all. He liked his women beautiful, sure, but dumb. They were less trouble that way.

This little lady had
trouble
written all over her.

Grady looked at Archie, looked at Archie’s eyes, saw the same nearly colorless gray. “Another relative crawling out of the woodwork, Mr. Peevers? I thought I already had been made aware of all of them. Attorney Banning forwarded me quite a large file, complete with pictures.”

Archie snorted. “Do you think I’d trust an attorney with every little secret? Especially Jefferson Banning, who stands to make a bundle as executor of my will now that his daddy’s dead and he’s inherited me. No, this little girl is extra. A sort of surprise I’m springing on my dear relatives now that you’re here to watch the fun.”

Grady may have felt he’d been caught in a time warp, was playing a part of an Agatha Christie novel, or had found himself on one of the less successful Disney World rides, but he was still pretty quick to pick on Archie’s game.

He held up the photograph again, looking at the photographer’s mark on the back.
Liisa of Baltimore.
Out of state. “Ah, yes, the obligatory missing Peevers heir,” he intoned seriously, wishing he could get away with a Charlie Chan accent without having Dickens wake from his trance and stomp on him. “How very…
predictable.”

“Ain’t it just, sonny? But what works, works. Right?” Archie said, rolling back onto the pillows as he laughed out loud. Not a pretty sound, or a pretty sight, but Grady refused to look away.

“Who is she really?” he asked once Archie had laughed himself out in appreciation of his own joke. That took a while, especially as his hilarity was followed hard by a coughing fit that reminded Grady of a cat choking on a hairball.

“Who is she? Damned if I know, sonny. Calls herself Annie Kendall. Says she’s my long-lost granddaughter. Bastard birth, of course.” His grin faded suddenly and he motioned to Dickens to finish the story.

“Mr. Peevers did indeed have a romantic interlude some fifty years ago with a young lady by the name of Sally Beckman, a maid here at Peevers Mansion. Miss Kendall asserts, without proof, that she is Miss Beckman’s granddaughter and, as follows, Mr. Peevers’s granddaughter as well.”

“Sally,” Archie said, leaning back against the pillows once more. “Sally, Sally, Sally. Love of my life, she was, Sullivan, and no lie. Dead now, of course, and my son, too. Only the granddaughter left. I’d give her every penny, if she’s really my flesh and blood. Better than those buzzards circling, waiting for me to croak. Not that they’re circling. They’re too busy milling around downstairs, eating like elephants and drinking up all my best booze. Oh, Sally, Sally. You’re the only one who really loved me.”

“Yeah, right. I think I’m getting misty.” Grady glanced at Archie, who was looking and sounding like a ferret with dyspepsia, then at the stoic Dickens.

And Grady knew. In that instant, watching Archie’s bad acting, seeing the slight tic in the butler’s cheek, he knew.

Archie Peevers didn’t still pine for Sally Beckman, if there ever
had been
a Sally Beckman. This guy didn’t like anybody, let alone love them. It was an act, all an act. And he, good old Grady, had been cast in the role of helpful dupe—with no honorable way out.

Damn, damn,
damn.

Grady wanted out of the room at least, and he wanted out now. He needed to think. “Speaking of booze, old man, do you have anything to drink in this mausoleum? Because I sure could use a belt.”

“Then you’ll be taking the position of bodyguard, sir?” Dickens asked.

Grady looked at the photograph once more. Nice face, nice eyes. Killer smile. An air of confidence that was nearly palpable. And, smart as she thought herself to be, probably without a clue as to how much trouble she could be in, coming to Peevers Mansion, trying to take a slice of the old man’s money. Although she didn’t look like a con artist. Although how many successful con artists
looked
like con artists?

“Yeah, I’m taking the job, especially since I already signed the contract that says I’m to be here for a month at two thousand a day. I’ll assume you’ve already arranged to have my assistant’s and my luggage transferred to our rooms? I’d like to meet with my assistant now, if you don’t mind, go over the packet of information from Attorney Banning one more time, and then meet with Mr. Peevers again after lunch.”

“Yes, sir,” Dickens said, also ignoring the overacting Archie, who was now hugging one of his pillows, stroking it, still repeating, “Sally, Sally.” He walked to the nightstand beside the bed, the one holding about two dozen prescription bottles, poured a glass of water, and tapped two small blue pills into his palm. “Here, sir. These will help calm your jangled nerves.”

“Dickens, how good you are to me. And how grandly I’m going to handsomely reward your many years of service when I’m finally called to my reward.”

“Yes, sir. Just as you say, sir,” Dickens said, bowing before he took the empty glass and replaced it on the table. “I’ll bring your lunch in one hour, sir.”

“He’s really dying?” Grady asked as the two of them left the bedroom, closing the double doors behind them. “And why don’t I think he is?”

“Probably, sir, because Mr. Peevers has been dying for the past ten years, which is when he took to his bed and began playing with his offspring and the rest of us.”

“Playing, Dickens?”

“Yes, sir. You’ll become quite used to seeing Attorney Banning climbing the front stairs, to make changes in Mr. Peevers’s will. It’s at least a weekly occurrence these past few months, and certainly does prove to keep us all hopping.”

“Except maybe one of you is getting a little tired of the game?” Grady suggested, beginning to understand why Archie Peevers thought he needed a live-in bodyguard and general snoop.

“Hopping, sir, is quite exhausting. There is a small refrigerator in your room, stocked with most anything you need, including liquor, sir,” Dickens said, then left Grady standing in front of a closed door in the west wing of the mansion. “The bell for lunch will ring in one and one-quarter hours. Promptness is always appreciated, sir.”

“Sure, sure,” Grady said to the butler’s retreating back. “Catch you, Lurch… er,
later.”
Then he opened the door to his bedroom and saw Maisie sitting on the edge of the bed, her stubby legs swinging back and forth a good two feet off the floor as she grinned at him.