How to Murder a Millionaire (22 page)

"The bride? She just went inside. Probably to throw up."

I raised my eyebrows. "Something wrong with the food?"

"Nothing except the calories," Jill retorted. "No, I think she's checking on her grandma."

"Peach is here?" Automatically, I looked up at the bedroom wing. Curtains had been drawn upstairs, I noticed. "I thought she might be staying at her daughter's house while everyone was here today."

Jill shook her head, moving away. "I took her some tea and scones half an hour ago. She ate like a truck driver."

"Think I could sneak inside and see her?"

Jill shrugged. "Fine by me. Use the kitchen entrance."

I followed the flagstone walk around the side porch
and slipped past a waiter who emerged from the kitchen bearing a tray of watercress sandwiches. Not an inspired menu, I thought, although Main Events had clearly done a beautiful job of preparing and stylishly serving the boring menu selected by the committee. Kitty Keough would find a way to make that snide observation about the committee in the newspaper column. But who did cutting remarks serve?

The kitchen was orderly. I ducked past Sam Mascione slinging plates into the dishwasher. I waved. If not for him, I might be a murder suspect myself.

I had been in Peach's house twice in my life and knew to push through the swinging kitchen doors, pass through the butler's pantry to a narrow hallway and finally go through a heavy paneled door to end up under the archway that led to the foyer of the grand house.

I stopped under the archway. The paneled door swung shut behind me with a sharp noise.

"Dammit, I won't have that woman on my property!"

I froze, recognizing Peach Treese's voice above me on the staircase. Her words cut across the noise of the door. But I was caught in the age-old eavesdropper's dilemma. I could either stay and listen now that the door prevented me from making a silent escape, or I could announce myself and risk the embarrassing consequences.

"Grammy, please. Let's go upstairs and—"

"Why is she here?" Peach shouted. "Just to torment me! She's out there parading around like she owned him!"

I had hesitated too long and now my curiosity kept me where I was. The argument continued on the stairs.

"Please don't be upset," Pamela coaxed.

"Well, she didn't own him," Peach bellowed, sounding far from the sedate, composed woman I knew. "She might have enjoyed his company from time to time, but he was mine! Mine!"

"I know, Grammy."

"He shouldn't have kept her a secret! If I'd known about her, I'd never—I wouldn't—I can't believe the old goat thought he could get away with having two mistresses! And for godsake, she's
old!"

Then Peach burst into tears and I heard her rushing footsteps go up the stairs. Five seconds later, a door slammed on the second floor.

I heard Pamela curse indelicately, and then she came down into the foyer. She saw me and stopped on the marble floor, twelve feet away.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop."

Pamela Treese, very young and so painfully slim that her eyes looked like they'd been drawn by a Disney cartoonist, sighed and came towards me. "She hasn't been herself, you know. She's very upset about Rory."

"I know."

"She didn't mean anything just now. It's just that Eloise makes her furious."

Eloise Tackett? Eloise and Rory?

"Rory's death was horrible," Pamela continued, "and now my wedding—it's just such a terrible strain on everyone." Big tears welled up in her Bambi eyes and she began to cry.

I barely knew Pamela, but I gave her a hug. Putting my arms around her, I realized she was beyond thin. She was hardly more than brittle bones and creamy skin. I patted her bony back and recognized a champion vomiter. "It's okay, darling."

"N-no, it isn't," Pamela cried. "Grammy has gone crazy, and I—I'm supposed to be on my best behavior and it—it's just t-too hard. I can't wait for the wedding to be over!"

I pulled her into the sitting room, and we perched on the edge of a silk-upholstered Chippendale sofa. A huge longcase clock towered over us, ticking sonorously. I gave Pamela the linen handkerchief from my handbag, and she snuffled prettily into it for several minutes while I placated her with nonsense.

"Just give her a few more days," I said. "She'll calm down, and the wedding will be beautiful. It just takes time."

Pamela sniffed and looked hopeful. She stopped twisting the handkerchief between her bitten-down fingernails.

"Is your dress ready?" I asked, hoping to divert her. "And the flowers ordered?"

Pamela nodded. "We decided against releasing the doves. Lincoln kept joking they were, like, going to crap on the guests."

"Well, he's a sensible young man like his father," I said.

"So we're having a shower of rose petals instead. I just hope they don't smell like compost."

"And your honeymoon?" I asked. "Are you going away?"

"Two weeks in Italy," Pamela said, beginning to perk up. "Then we're moving into a house on Delancey Street. It's being painted while we're traveling."

"It sounds as if you have everything beautifully planned," I soothed.

She looked a lot like her grandmother, despite her complete lack of body fat. Very straight with a natural elegance that would, unfortunately, be ruined by osteoporosis by the time she was fifty. Perhaps she didn't have Peach's intelligence, but a few years of good books and sensible friends might do the trick.

Pamela smiled fetchingly at me. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"Well—"

"We found our surrogate!"

"Your—?"

I must have looked completely blank, because Pamela laughed. "For our baby! I haven't had a period since I was fourteen, so we're using a surrogate. She's the sweetest thing—from Norway, blond genes, you know—and I think it's going to work out wonderfully. Our lawyer is closing all the loopholes now. We want to be sure she never sees the baby, of course."

I had no clue what the proper response should be to such a revelation. "How nice," I managed to say, abandoning the hope that even graduate school could help Pamela.

"Do you think I need to go back to the party?" she asked, as empty-hearted as a junior-high cheerleader. "I'd really rather skip the tea. The sight of all that food makes me nauseous."

I patted her hand. "Everyone will understand you must look after your grandmother."

"She's beside herself," Pamela confided. "She found out Rory had a girlfriend and went ballistic."

"It must have been a terrible shock."

"Yeah, but, like, what did she think? She wouldn't sleep with him, so of course he went looking for someone else. Men are such pigs."

"All those years with Rory, she never—?"

"Not once," Pamela said proudly. "And who could blame her? I mean, he wasn't exactly gorgeous. Or even very clean."

I thought Rory looked perfectly sanitary, and I was willing to stack my judgment up against anybody's— except perhaps that of Pamela Treese, who now that I looked more closely, appeared to have scrubbed her hands down to a new layer of pink, scaly skin.

"So who cares if he slept with Eloise Tackett?" Pamela went on. "Let her have him! It's what Grammy had with Rory that counts. Public respect. Dignity. But she's gone postal about it. I'm so glad we don't have a gun in the house."

"You don't think Peach would harm Eloise?"

"Who knows? It must have been humiliating. When Grammy found that drug in Rory's hand!" Pamela shuddered in disgust.

"The Viagra?"

"Right, and then she figured out that the Tackett woman gave it to him, well, you can imagine how manic she got."

"How did Peach discover Eloise gave Rory the Viagra?"

"She interrupted them discussing it. She was so furious! I thought maybe she had— Well, no, she wouldn't hurt Rory."

Wouldn't she? I tried to remember the way Peach looked as she came down the staircase that night. She'd been distraught over her argument with Rory. Or had she killed him? Were the police right in their pursuit of her after all?

Stunned, I managed to say, "I'm sure she's glad to have you here."

"Thank you." Pamela stood up. "I'd better get back to her. You've been very kind."

"I'll find my own way out," I said.

She went upstairs, and I staggered back through the
kitchen, wondering if Harold Tackett knew his wife had been having an affair with Rory Pendergast. Or had Eloise successfully diverted Detective Bloom's questions with her blunt denials?

Outside, I found the
Intelligencer
photographer waiting for me under the arbor. It was Sara Jane, the same young woman who had snapped the pictures of the mayor. I felt as if we'd bonded that night, and she obviously agreed. We conferred with the committee chair and decided on the photographs. I suggested a backdrop of the rose arbor, which might come in handy with the article I intended to write about Pamela's wedding. I thought readers might like a prewedding peak at the garden.

The committee chair was a birdlike woman in a huge straw hat and short white gloves with daisies embroidered on the wrists. Her hands fluttered nervously as she talked. "We invited the Pendergast sisters to come," she explained. "They were supposed to plant a peach seedling to honor Mrs. Treese, but they didn't return my calls, and I'm sure they don't intend to come so soon after their brother's funeral, but I do wish they'd phoned because I could have made alternative plans, so now I just don't know what to do!"

"We'll take a few general photos of everyone else," I said. "Some candid shots of your guests enjoying themselves will be wonderful."

"Well, if you think so," she whimpered, then walked off mumbling anxiously.

The photographer enjoyed snapping pictures of beautifully dressed women against the backdrop of the lavish garden. A few men in ice cream suits and straw boaters lent just the right air of charm and civility to
promote the flower show. I began to hope the photos would be so pretty that nobody on the committee would miss the Pendergast sisters.

My mind flew back to the news that Rory and Eloise Tackett had been lovers. I couldn't believe it. Eloise seemed so devoted to her husband. Had she strayed from her marriage? With a man her husband made no bones about despising? A man she obviously disliked herself?

Did the police know where the Viagra came from?

I wondered if Jonathan Longnecker could tell me about the Tackett-Pendergast relationship since he had worked for both families.

I found Jill again behind the tea tables. "The party you're working tonight at Lexie Paine's. Did you say it was going to be for museum people?"

"That's what I was told. We made sushi. God, I hope Dad didn't make them too early. He doesn't pay attention to that kind of detail sometimes."

I made a mental note to avoid the sushi.

Just as I was about to leave, I noticed a small entourage come through the gate that bisected Rory's boxwood hedge. The group entered Peach's garden and began to make a majestic procession along the rose arbor.

"It's the Pendergast sisters!" an awestruck bystander whispered near me. "They've been supporters for years."

"I never thought they'd come today," murmured another voice.

Lily Pendergast wore another black dress—this one covered with floating bits of chiffon that gave her the look of a haute couture scarecrow. Her shorter sister was decked out in yet another extravagant tracksuit with a matching baseball cap decorated with flowers.

I decided to keep my distance as they were greeted by a flock of committee members.

Someone dragged out a potted peach tree, and someone else began to make a garbled speech. The photographer took pictures of everyone. Lily and Opal Pendergast each accepted a gold-painted shovel.

It was only a ceremonial shovel of dirt, but I watched as the sisters each hefted their garden tools with surprising strength for their ages.

My mind was full of adultery and sexual conquest among the elderly. I mused about fratricide as the Poison Gas Sisters dug into Peach Treese's flower bed. Had they spent their years wishing they had control of the family money while their brother trotted the globe, bought extravagant art and gained influence among powerful people?

No, it seemed unlikely that they had murdered their brother for his fortune. They looked pretty well-off to begin with. And I assumed they had inherited a cut of their father's estate. They lived in comfort in Palm Beach, after all.

But now that they had the whole fortune in their clutches, would they want more? Did they plan to sell Rory's newspaper and put me out of a job before I had really sunk my teeth into work? Maybe the idea of running a newspaper—even from a civilized distance—was too much responsibility for two ladies to handle at their ages.

Well before Rory's death there had been rumors that he was considering selling the paper. But could the possible sale of the paper have driven some employee to murder?

I thought of Kitty Keough's rant about the
Intelligencer.
I remembered the look on her face as she shouted at me. She might have been so terrified of
losing her hard-fought social position that murder seemed the only way she could keep her job. Except, I reasoned, if she'd killed Rory, her plan had backfired. The Pendergast sisters might well destroy Kitty's raison d'etre.