We had a cup of coffee in a pretty place that had a view of the river and then we went our separate ways. I felt pangs of longing as I drove away. Tomorrow Jack would go back to work at the Sixty-fifth Precinct in Brooklyn and it looked as though I would still be here. I was still without answers for Hudson’s disappearance, and now the very convent had been invaded.
I thought about what Walter Farragut had said, that Hudson had killed Mary Teresa because he suspected she might know the truth that involved his guilt. Then why hadn’t Hudson done it seven years ago? No, I had stirred something up yesterday and someone had decided to silence the poor woman. The question was, was it Walter Farragut?
Over coffee Jack and I talked obliquely about what troubled me: Walter Farragut and his daughter, Julia. I didn’t want to think about it, couldn’t bring myself to confront it. But it was right there and I couldn’t get rid of it.
There was a car in the long driveway next to the Belvederes’ house. I parked on the street and walked up to the front door. Marilyn Belvedere answered.
“I heard what happened,” she said. “Come in. Were you at the convent when that poor nun was murdered?”
“I’ve been staying there since Friday. The handyman found her body this morning, lying outside the chapel. I think she’d gone there to pray for Father McCormick.” It was probably at least partly true.
“They said on the news it was someone looking for the poor box.”
“I don’t believe that. Mrs. Belvedere, I need your help. Isn’t it time to water the Corcorans’ plants?”
She looked undecided for a moment, then said, “I’ll get the keys.”
She took her coat out of the closet and went somewhere for the keys. When she came back, we went the long way to the house, out the front door, along the street, and up the Corcorans’ walk.
“In the summer I go out the side door and cut across, but with all the snow, it’s easier this way,” she explained. “And you’re not wearing boots, are you?”
Neither was she. It took two keys to open the door.
“Did the Farraguts have two locks?”
“No. The Corcorans are a lot more security conscious. Personally, I think they overdo it. You get the occasional burglar out here, but it’s really pretty safe. Come to the kitchen with me. I have to fill the watering can.”
I followed her through a hall to the back of the house. The kitchen looked completely remodeled, with handsome wood cabinets that might look Victorian to someone living a hundred years later, and plenty of windows facing the back.
“The original kitchen was very small. Housewives didn’t do much cooking in a house this size a hundred years ago. They let the servants do that. The Corcorans pushed the kitchen out a little to get room for the island.” She turned the water on and filled two cans, one of copper, one of stainless steel. “I’ll do the ones here on the window shelves. Would you mind doing the ones in the breakfast room?”
“Not at all.” I walked from the kitchen to a charming room with a round wooden table and heavy armchairs. A rubber tree and a large Norfolk Island pine were near the large window. Although light came through it, thin blinds covered it completely. I guessed the Corcorans didn’t want people peeping in at them, or at their empty breakfast room. There were some other large, treelike plants that I watered, too, one with a beautiful, variegated leaf. Before returning to the kitchen, I admired the china cabinet and its display of hand-painted plates.
“Beautiful plants,” I said as I went back to the kitchen.
“They are. Gail has more than a green thumb. Let’s fill up and do the living room and dining room.”
We carried our cans to the dining room first. As we were leaving the kitchen the phone rang.
“Don’t worry about that. The machine’ll answer.”
It did. “Gail? This is Sunny. Just wanted to let you know that Miranda had a little girl Thursday night, seven-two, with little wisps of dark hair, an absolute beauty. So she’ll get her tax deduction, but she’ll miss first baby of the year. Call you when you get home.”
“Isn’t that nice,” Mrs. Belvedere said. “Miranda went to high school with Julia Farragut.”
“I guess everybody knows each other here.”
“Pretty much.”
I watered a crown of thorns and moved on to a group of African violets. “I understand old Mrs. Farragut was home with Julia the night she killed herself.”
“I think that’s so. I think she called the ambulance.”
“Was Walter Farragut home?”
She stopped watering. “He was out. He came home later, after the police arrived.”
“Where was Foster?”
“I don’t think anyone ever knew where Foster was. Probably out getting himself in trouble.” Her voice was tinged with unkindness.
“Then the grandmother was alone with Julia that night.”
“I think so. I think she said she went to look in on her, see if she wanted anything, and found her.”
We went back for more water. As we entered the kitchen I heard the sound of a piece of machinery turning on. I looked at her.
“Must be the furnace. Gail leaves it at fifty-five or so so the pipes won’t freeze.”
We refilled and went to the living room. It was an enormous room with a beautiful fireplace. The walls were papered with a tiny floral design that was echoed in the covering on the sofa and two easy chairs. Antique lamps were everywhere, a magnificent collection. I could see the one at the window that I had noticed from outside last evening. Here the shades were down only three quarters of the way, perhaps to allow the plants to soak up the sun. We watered in silence. When we were finished, I paused to admire a tapestry hanging on the wall. Just beneath it was the thermostat. The temperature in the living room read fifty-eight degrees.
“Works fast,” I said, meaning the furnace.
“It may have been another zone that went on. The house has several zones. Do you want to go upstairs now?”
“Please.”
“We don’t need the cans. Gail moves all the plants downstairs when she’s away to spare me the trouble. I really shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I appreciate your help.”
There were a lot of bedrooms upstairs, all of them larger than anything in the house I lived in. We looked in on the Corcorans’ master bedroom suite with its small adjoining sitting room and full bath, then the children’s rooms, which had been decorated with the kinds of colors and furniture and games that I had seen only in magazines in waiting rooms.
“When Gail found out about the suicide, she decided not to use that room for the family. I really can’t blame her.”
“I understand.”
“So it’s a guest room now.” She opened a door and stood there, not entering.
I went inside. It was a lovely room, larger than the rooms for the Corcorans’ children, certainly a room for a favorite child. It was in the corner of the house with windows on two sides. Shades were drawn now, but pulling one aside, I could see the Belvedere house through the trees and behind the one on the other wall the large backyard. It was a much simpler, more natural backyard than the one behind Walter Farragut’s new house. Here a swing set stood near a small slide, trees grew, and the edge of a patio was visible. I couldn’t see very far to the left because the kitchen extension blocked my view, and what looked like a wooden fire escape also intervened.
A double bed was made up with a colorful quilt and decorative pillows, or perhaps it was a queen dwarfed by the size of the room. A rocking chair had a cushion covered in the same tones as the quilt, and a hooked rug in the center of the room left the old wide floorboards bare, a good touch. There was a dresser with a mirror over it, another wonderful antique lamp on the night table, and a watercolor of a fall scene on one wall. Altogether a very nice room to spend a night in, or to grow up in.
“Do you know where she hanged herself?” I asked.
Mrs. Belvedere had not entered the room. She stood at the doorway as though an invisible barrier kept her from crossing the threshold. “I think the closet,” she said uneasily. “I think there was something in there, a bar or something. The ceiling is quite high—maybe it was a shelf.” She was plainly nervous.
I opened the closet door and looked inside.
“They changed it,” Mrs. Belvedere said. “Gail likes her closets customized.”
“They did a beautiful job.” There was everything in there you could want, slanted shelves to hold shoes, rods at various heights to accommodate clothes of different lengths, shelves for sweaters, even built-in drawers. Obviously Gail Corcoran used this closet to store her out-of-season wardrobe because it looked like an upscale cruise-wear department.
I backed out and closed the door. “Do you know where the grandmother’s room was?”
There was a bang from somewhere in the house and Marilyn Belvedere jumped. “A shutter’s loose again,” she said. “May we please go?”
“Sure.”
“It wasn’t a room,” she said, answering my question. “She had a separate apartment on the first floor with her own kitchen and even her own living room with a fireplace. It’s on the other side of the house. I never saw it, but Serena told me about it. She said it was how they all managed to get along with each other so well.”
Then it was true that she could have been in the house and heard nothing. “Do you know which room was Foster’s?”
“One of the ones the children have, I’m not sure which. You saw them both. Have you seen enough now?” She was distressed, anxious to leave.
“Yes, I think so.” I took one more look around the room and followed her downstairs.