Three Sisters (11 page)

Having finished a breakfast of bran muffins and orange juice, jogged on the treadmill for a sweaty half hour, and enjoyed a brisk three minutes in the shower, Andrew Turner donned blue cotton underwear and socks, a white silk shirt, ash-gray trousers and vest, and a pale blue tie with an ebony clip to match the studs in his cuffs. He slipped on an immaculate pair of black cowboy boots, did a stiff-backed West Point–cadet pose before the mirror in the master bedroom, admired the image.

Industrious Beatrice Spencer was already at work in her spacious upstairs studio, where a half-dozen mullioned windows admitted that soft northern light that would not cast stark shadows, or create vulgar glares on an artist’s delicate composition of form and color. Wearing a paint-splattered canvas smock, she was putting the final touches on her “masterpiece.” As Bea dabbed and daubed and cocked her head and held her mouth “just right,” she absorbed heavenly strains of Chopin’s
Fantaisie
in F Minor, Opus 49. What unadulterated bliss. But, like tumbleweeds riding on the wind, such moments pass all to quickly. This particular reverie was interrupted by the sharp clicks of Andrew’s boot heels coming up the stairway. Thus forewarned, the creative lady hurriedly cast a cast-off cotton bedsheet over the work in progress and turned her attention to an earlier creation that could do with a few brushstrokes.

The man of the house barged in like the captain of a shoot-’em-dead SWAT team about to confront a terrorist with bomb in hand, boomed out, “What’re you up to, my little Sweet Bea?”

Grimacing at this crude horticultural pun, Beatrice made a deft brushstroke. “I am touching up
Wild Burros Grazing in Sage.
”

“Burros?” The husband came closer to the canvas, picking his teeth with a spruce toothpick. (Oh, but had he known how the sisters had played at pull-the-toothpick—and what the winner had gotten for fixing the game!) Try as he might, the prize did not see anything that resembled a four-legged creature. Neither could he discover any sage being grazed upon. He canted his head sideways, tried to think of something complimentary to say. “That gizmo on the left looks like a flamingo. With a monkey on its back.”

Now, despite her few faults (and none of us is perfect), Beatrice was as good a wife as Andrew had any right to expect, and the soul of patience with her secondhand husband. Since the brief honeymoon, she had endured a number of his oafish remarks on the subject of her Art, and had passed them off as symptoms of a combination of afflictions—which included a deplorable ignorance and a deprived upbringing in a family where the only visual art in the home was on a calendar from Chuck’s Corner Hardware. But one can take only so much. She turned on her husband, cast the blue-eyed, icy glare. “Andrew, do not think me unkind—but someone must tell you this: You are a Neanderthal.”

“Maybe I am.” He pointed his chin at
Wild Burros Grazing in Sage.
“But I could paint a helluva lot better horse on a cave wall than that.”

“I assume that you refer to the ancient sketches in the caverns of France.” She aimed the paintbrush at his pale blue tie. “That ageless art was created by Cro-Magnon man, no doubt while your slope-browed cousins stood by grunting, scratching themselves in unseemly places, and generally making sport of their intellectual superiors.”

His happy laugh twanged at her nerve strings. “You are
so
cute when you’re mad!” He grabbed her, inflicted the woman with a suffocating kiss, and was gone.

Beatrice managed to catch her breath.
Andrew is such a brute! I don’t know why I married him.
But she did know, of course. Almost every day, the bride would remind herself that when a person weds another person without a lengthy getting-to-know-you engagement, there are bound to be a few unpleasant surprises. Ever the confident one, Beatrice assured herself that she was capable of managing difficult situations. With all his faults, Andrew was merely a man. It was largely a matter of facing the facts of his shortcomings, and working out a corrective plan.

And she had. By and by, things would be just fine.

That Evening

When Andrew Turner returned to hearth and home after a busy day at Granite Creek Electronics and Computers, his wife was neither adding split pine to the flames crackling in the hearth nor preparing dinner in the kitchen. He found her in the wine cellar.

Beatrice was on a small stepladder, replacing a dusty bottle that did not quite meet the requirements for tonight’s meal.

Hubby crept up with admirable stealth, slapped her on the behind.

Not stealthily enough. She had heard the door at the top of the stairs creek open, seen his slender, sinister shadow creeping ever closer. This was why the lady did not flinch at the stinging smackimus on her gluteus maximus.

Understandably disappointed by this unenthusiastic response, Andrew scowled, fell back on his witty repartee: “So what’re you up to, Sweet Bea?”

“I am attempting to locate an appropriate vintage.”

“For fish or fowl?”

“We shall feast on what Madison Avenue refers to as the Other White Meat.”

“Ah—oinker flesh.”

“Grade-A pork, Andrew. Which, in this instance, has been genetically engineered to produce copious quantities of omega-3.”
Or is it omega-5? I can never remember.

“The mere mention of high-tech biology gives me a horrendous appetite.” The computer expert licked his lips. “Ham, I presume?”

“Ix-nay on am-hay. For dinner, we are having butterflied chops. With baby green peas.” She looked down to smile at the handsome man. “And homemade applesauce, with just a touch of cinnamon.”

“That sounds good enough to eat.”

And it was.

As the man of the house was carving off a triangular chunk from an inch-thick pork chop, the missus advised, “Don’t forget that Cassie’s TV show is on tomorrow night at nine.”

“Has another week already come and gone?” Andrew Turner interrupted the meat-cutting task, gazed across the mahogany dining table at his elegant wife. “The pleasant days in between your sister’s whizbang public performances seem to slip by so quickly.” His smile barely lifted the sparse growth of mustache he had been cultivating since returning from the Costa Rican honeymoon. “It seems only last night that the Dark Lady was predicting spectacular disasters and communing with various spooks.”

“You should not make sport of dear Cassie.”

“Very well, I will attempt to restrain myself.” He got back to work on the pork chop. “But you must admit, she is a bit of a…” He searched for the word. It had something to do with dessert.
Aha.
“Fruitcake.”
Good-looking fruitcake, though.

“That is unkind, Andrew. Cassie is—shall we say—
gifted.
”

“That is too generous, Bea. She is—shall we say—creepy.”

“I suggest a compromise. My gifted sister is mildly eccentric.”

“Agreed. But only for the sake of keeping peace in the family.” He hefted a succulent morsel of roasted pig flesh to his mouth. Chewed. This supper grub was downright tasty. As was a spoonful of infant butter-soaked peas, another of cinnamon-sprinkled applesauce.

Beatrice, who had only pecked at her food, picked up a bone-china teacup, took a dainty sip of Darjeeling. “If you will make a pretense of being interested, I will pass on some inside information about Cassie’s next show.”

“Very well, I will pretend as best I can.” A gulp of black, cold-brewed coffee. “What is Miss Mildly Eccentric serving up tomorrow evening—another conversation with a long-dead celebrity?”

Beatrice shook her head.

“Oh,
pack rats.
” To his credit, and to please his wife, Mr. Turner was attempting to clean up his language. “I was looking forward to a chat with Professor Einstein. Or Thomas Edison.”

Bea regarded him over the teacup. “Much better than that.”

“I doubt it.” He winked at his wife. “But give me a hint.”

“Very well—Cassie is communing with a new spirit. But not a celebrity.”

“Animal, mineral, or vegetable?”

“Minerals and vegetables do not have spirits.”

“And animals do?”

Beatrice had a sudden sensation that the ghosts of Ike and Spike were watching from a darkened hallway. The German shepherds were presumably eager to hear her response to this weighty theological question. “Of course animals have spirits. But the communicant in question is a
human
spirit.” She put the teacup aside. “Cassie is in touch with a soul who died a horrible, violent death.”

Andrew Turner felt his hands go cold. “Bea, please tell me that Cassandra isn’t pretending to talk to Astrid!”

“Oh no. Nothing like that.”

“Color me thankful.”

“And she is not
pretending.
Cassie has been communicating with a perfect stranger.”

“Then advise her to proceed with caution.” Andrew put knife to pork chop. “There is no such thing.”

“Please explain.”

“Tell your gullible sister, and you may quote me: ‘If strangers were not an inferior lot, we would already be acquainted with them. It follows, then, that there can be no perfect ones.’” He inserted his fork into the succulent swine morsel.

“Andrew—you are so terribly droll!” Beatrice put a napkin to her lips. “Shall I tell you more about Cassie’s most recent contact from the spirit world?”

“If it will make you incandescently happy.” He raised the fork.

“Her name is April Something.”

The sterling silver instrument stalled just below Andrew’s chin. “What?”

“It’s a funny last name.” Beatrice waved the napkin, as if this gesture would help her summon the memory. Evidently, it did. “Oh—now I remember. The spirit identifies herself as April Valentine. Sounds like a showgirl’s name.” Expressing just the merest hint of disapproval, Bea arched a brow. “And when I tell you how this distraught spirit claims she died, you will not believe it.”

Andrew Turner stared at his wife.

“April Valentine told Cassie that she had been eaten by hogs.”

The distraught diner returned the fork, pork and all, to his plate.

According to St. Augustine, what every man desires is
peace
. And you can bet your boots and saddle too—the Bishop of Hippo knew what he was talking about.

Whether or not sweet, inner tranquility was what Andrew Turner was seeking, the man was definitely in need of solitude. He wished to withdraw to a secluded spot where a fellow—if he was a mind to—could gnaw on a ten-dollar pork chop without having to put up with the wife’s incessant chatter. Happily for Mr. Turner, he was the sort of farsighted individual who had already prepared just such a refuge for himself. After dinner with Beatrice, he mumbled something about needing to attend to a couple of things, and retreated quickly. Along the hallway he marched, boot heels saying
clickety-click
. Sudden left turn, through the door, down the narrow stairway, into the musty-cool wine cellar.

No, an alcoholic beverage was not what the man was after. He made a beeline to the sealed-off corner that had once served a similar purpose for Bea’s father, when the old man felt that occasional need to deprive himself of the wholesome company of his attentive wife, who was always offering excellent advice upon such weighty issues as how her mate might lose a few unsightly inches around his middle by substituting crispy celery for fried potatoes and unsweetened tea for pale German ale.

Unlike his hale and hearty bear-shooting predecessor, Turner was not overly fond of either greasy potatoes or imported beer. He was of that peculiar segment of society that has a taste for overpriced coffees flavored with cocoa and spices, Chopin as interpreted by Evgeny Kissin, and a yen for things electronic and digital. Bea’s recently acquired husband was, it is fair to say, an electronics and computer
genius.
Also fair to say—a geek. This is honestly meant to be a compliment. (Really.)

Shortly after moving in with his new wife, Mr. Turner had assumed squatter’s rights to old Joe H. Spencer’s basement hideaway, which included a full bath, a comfortable leather couch, a modern kitchenette, which the usurper had stocked with a selection of foods and beverages, including coffees that would have made Mr. Starbucks roast with envy, and also the most remarkable assembly of—No. Rather than tell (so it is said by those who know), it is better to show. So let the show begin.

Andrew Turner unlocked the door to his sanctuary, entered the darkened space (there were no windows in this crypt), and locked the door behind him. He took four measured steps across the carpet, paused, addressed a concealed microphone: “It begins.”

This code phrase was promptly amplified, filtered, digitized. The result was compared to a 90-kilobyte digital file of Andrew’s voice (also saying, “It begins”), which was stored in a SanDisk flash memory stick that was plugged into a USB port on his Dell computer. Within about four hundred milliseconds, the result was determined to be “within pa ram e ter,” which enabled the interface between computer and external-control circuitry to do its stuff. Which was to switch on an overhead spotlight that illuminated the man, and activated a ten-second digital recording of a Carnegie Hall audience applauding a sterling performance of Dvorak’s Symphony no. 8.

Andrew Turner bowed, murmured a modest “thank you.” As the clapping of thousands of pairs of enthusiastic hands continued, he smiled (condescendingly) at the invisible crowd, waited as the appreciative sounds gradually faded. The moment having arrived to get down to serious business, the performer flipped back the imaginary tails of an imaginary tux and seated himself on a varnished oak bench at a magnificent grand piano. For about three heartbeats—no. That is incorrect. There was no bench. One gets carried away. He was perched on a quite ordinary, padded black office chair. But where were we? Oh, yes.

For about three heartbeats—while he imagined the expectant audience sitting raptly on the edges of their expensive seats (tickets ranged from fifty to five hundred dollars!)—the maestro’s thin, pale hands were poised above the ivories. No. Not above the ivories. As there was no bench, there was also no piano, grand or otherwise.

The maestro’s thin, pale hands were poised above a QWERTY keyboard.

His nimble fingers began to dance across the keys.

Rapture!

Not quite at the speed of light, a command was sent over the modem, along the telephone lines, to awaken a computer in another home and provide him with access to the hard disk. Which is what Andrew Turner—who might be likened to a digital Peeping Tom—often did merely for the joy of voyeurism. But this particular entry was one from which he expected to profit. After downloading 2,641 files from the unsuspecting computer and disconnecting from that machine, he applied himself to the tedious process of analyzing data. Turner began with word-processing files. Nothing of great interest. He moved on to e-mails sent and received. Almost at once, he discovered that some dozens of incoming messages were encrypted—which made them immensely interesting. It required only about fifteen minutes for Turner to locate the password in the stolen files. After this, the process was mere child’s play. One by one, he began to read the secret e-mails. On the very first one, he knew he had hit (as the crusty old silver miners used to say) “color.” Pay dirt. Andrew had the dirt, all right. The question was—what to do with it? The answer, when it came to him, was: Hmm. How best to put it? After due consideration, one concludes that there are only two descriptors sufficient to the task. One of them is “perfect.” The other is “just what the doctor ordered.”

The computer expert was feeling measurably better. He had found a kind of peace.

But not that
peace which passeth all understanding.
What Andrew Turner had settled for was that ersatz variety offered by this world, which
doth not satisfy,
and
quickly fadeth away
….

Even a brief encounter with St. Augustine might have helped him immensely.