Five
Florence had weekends off, though she often remained at home with Jane and Nick. Now that spring had arrived, she spent the occasional weekend with a friend, a fellow nanny in Randolph, where she had worked before coming to Jane last fall. Jane hadn’t expected Florence back until that night, but when Jane pulled into the driveway, Florence stood on the front steps of the dark chalet-style house, terror on her dark pretty face.
Jane and Nick got out of the car and walked up the path.
“Missus!” Florence cried. “Who was it, do they know?”
Jane stared at her. “How did you hear about it?”
“My friend Noni, the girl I told you about from Saint Kitts—she called me.”
Noni was also a Shady Hills nanny. “But Noni lives at the north end of town,” Jane said. “How did she know?”
“From Yolanda, her friend who works as a chambermaid at Hydrangea House. Yolanda told Noni the girl was dressed up like a clown!” Florence looked horrified as she contemplated this picture.
“Not in front of Nick,” Jane murmured to Florence as she passed into the house.
“Right,” Florence said.
Nick, looking on the verge of tears, walked quickly past her through the foyer and into the family room, where he switched on the TV and sat on the floor, legs crossed.
“Winky!” he called, and the small tortoiseshell cat appeared instantly, climbed into his lap, and curled into a ball. He slowly stroked her fur, staring at the TV screen but as if not seeing it. “Oh, Wink . . .” he said softly.
Jane turned to Florence and tilted her head toward the kitchen. Jane led the way in, and they both sat at the table.
“He’s very upset,” Florence observed.
“He found her,” Jane said.
Florence’s hands flew to her face and tears appeared instantly in her large dark eyes. “The poor boy.”
“The kids were having a scavenger hunt. They went into the woods to find some of the things on their lists. And there she was, hanging from a tree.”
“But who is she?”
Jane shook her head. “No one recognized her. And she wasn’t dressed like a clown, by the way; she was wearing heavy makeup, very garish, like a clown.”
“Ah.” Florence frowned. “But why?”
“No idea.”
“And whoever she was, why did she hang herself there?” Florence asked.
“Excellent question. The obvious answer is that she had something to do with Hydrangea House.”
“You mean someone who worked there, like Yolanda?” Florence shook her head. “No, Mr. and Mrs. Zabriskie would have recognized her.”
“True, but she could have been connected to the inn in some other way. Perhaps she knew someone staying there, or had been staying there herself.”
“But Mr. and Mrs. Zabriskie—”
“Would have recognized her?” Jane pondered this. “I wonder. How well can they know all the people who come and go at the inn? I believe it could have been a guest. Louise said they’ve been busy lately.”
Florence rose. “Would you like some tea?”
Jane had to laugh. “You’re off today, Florence. I’d love some tea, but I’ll make it. May I make you some?”
“Yes, you are very kind,” Florence said, and sat down again while Jane worked at the counter.
“You know . . .” Florence said, and her tone was different, deeply thoughtful, so that Jane turned to look at her. “I remember now that Wednesday night I was talking to Noni, and she said Yolanda had talked about seeing someone walking in the woods behind the inn.”
A cold shiver passed through Jane. “So did Louise.”
“Yolanda told Noni it was a young woman, thin. Yolanda watched from the window of her bedroom on the third floor.”
Jane recalled that a number of Louise and Ernie’s employees lived on the inn’s third floor, especially in the summer, when young college students came to Shady Hills for jobs.
Florence went on, “Yolanda watched her for quite some time. The girl never left the woods, but she kept right to the edge . . .” She stopped, closed her eyes as if remembering. “ ‘Like a stranger looking in,’ was how Yolanda put it. How very odd. . . .”
“Odd indeed,” Jane said, pouring tea into two cups and taking them to the table. “Well, whoever she was, whatever she was there for, I think it’s a safe bet that she’s our hanging woman.”
“But who is she?”
“I know very little about such things, but I’m sure the police have ways of identifying people in cases like this. Sending out bulletins, trying to match the dead person’s description with that of any missing persons . . .”
“Yes, I am sure you’re right.”
Nick walked into the room, Winky at his heels, and the two women put on smiles simultaneously as they turned to him.
“I never got any birthday cake,” Nick said in a deadpan voice.
Jane pulled him over and squeezed him tight. “You poor thing,” she said, though she was glad he’d gotten over the trauma of his discovery enough to realize he’d missed a piece of cake.
Winky jumped onto the table with her combination purr-and-rumble that said, “Pay attention to me!” Florence, happy to oblige, began stroking the cat’s soft orange-and-black fur.
“I tell you what we’ll do!” Florence said, her face brightly animated. “I will make you one of my special vanilla cakes from a recipe straight from my mother in Trinidad! You will love it—it is full of raisins and almonds. How about tonight? I will run down to the Village Shop for the ingredients. And I will get ice cream, too.”
Nick considered this for a moment, looking at Florence with something close to suspicion. “Well . . . okay!”
“Yes,” Jane said, “that will be wonderful, Florence. Thank you.” She gave Florence a wink.
Florence responded with a tiny nod and looked at her watch. “My goodness, it’s past three. I’d better get going. This cake needs time!” She jumped up and went to the sink, where she ran her hands under the faucet. “Soon this cat will have more fur on me than on her!” Shaking her head, she dried her hands on a dish towel, then took a dab of hand cream from a jar near the sink and smoothed it over her hands.
“Now,” she said briskly, “who wants to come with Florence?”
“Me!” Nick cried.
Florence threw back her head and released a big rich laugh. “I had a feeling. Is your homework done?”
He thought for a moment. “Yup—except for my spelling words.”
Florence looked at Jane.
“I think it’s okay for him to work on his words while you’re baking. In fact,” Jane said, turning to Nick, “if you ask Florence nicely, maybe she’ll take you to the inn to pick up your presents. We left them there in all the confusion.”
“I think that is very possible,” Florence said with a smile.
“Yes!” Nick bent down and scooped Winky into his arms. “You can have a piece of my birthday cake, too, Wink! And you can play with my presents.” He started toward Florence as if he intended to take the cat along.
“Well, let go of her, then!” Florence said, throwing her hands out toward Winky.
Suddenly, with a loud yowl, Winky sprang from Nick’s arms to the floor. For an instant she stood still, the fur on her back standing up, her tail bristling like a brush; then she bolted across the kitchen so fast her paws slid on the tiles. When she reached the back hall, she abruptly turned around, shot back through the kitchen, raced across the family room, and disappeared into the foyer. They heard her thumping madly up the stairs.
“I swear that cat understands English,” Jane said.
“No, missus,” Florence said, looking perplexed. “She has been acting like this for several days. I have been meaning to tell you. She just—goes bananas! Racing around the house, up and down the stairs! A crazy cat! What do you think it is? Maybe spring fever? I’ve told you I thought you should let her go outside.”
Jane shook her head firmly. “I don’t know what’s making her act like that, but I’ve told you, Florence, you’re wrong about her going outside. She’s an indoor cat.”
“But she has her claws,” Florence argued.
“True, but so did all the other cats that wandered into the woods and lost fights with dogs and foxes and possums and raccoons . . .”
“No way is she going outside!” Nick put in. “Who cares if she acts crazy? That’s just Winky. Come on, Florence.” He went out the back door into the garage.
“My orders,” Florence said with an indulgent smile.
“Florence—” Jane put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“No problem!” Florence said. “It’s what the poor thing needs.” She started to turn, then stopped, her expression darkening. “I just can’t stop thinking about that poor girl. Why would she do that to herself?”
“Why does anyone commit suicide?” Jane asked rhetorically.
“Who said it was suicide?”
Both women turned in surprise. Nick, who had apparently been listening on the small landing just outside the door to the garage, had poked his head back into the hall.
“What do you mean?” Florence asked him.
He shrugged. “How do you think she killed herself?”
“Well, it’s obvious,” Jane said, though not really wanting to talk about this. “She tied a rope around a tree trunk, threw it over a branch, made a noose, put it around her neck, and . . .”
“Yes?” he said.
“Well, she could have either jumped from another branch or stood on something and kicked it away.”
But Nick shook his head. “Mom, you’re always telling me that things are rarely as they seem and that I should look for things other people don’t see.”
Jane didn’t remember telling him that, but she decided to play along. “And?”
“Well, I looked at everything very carefully, because I knew I’d never get to see it again. There were no branches she could have jumped from—the tree just wasn’t shaped that way. And as for standing on something—there was nothing there!”
“A rock?” Florence hazarded. “A fallen log? Don’t forget, she would have kicked it away. So it wouldn’t have been right under her.”
“I know that.” Nick looked at Florence as if to ask, Do you think I’m an idiot? “So I looked all around her feet. There was nothing. No rock, no log, no stump, no nothing.”
Jane was becoming upset. “But then—”
“Then either of two things could have happened. One, she did stand on something and kick it away, but afterward someone came along and took it away.”
Jane gaped at him. “But why would anyone do that? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t, does it?” he agreed solemnly. “So I’m leaning more toward theory two.”
“Which is?”
“Someone strung her up! She was murdered!” His face was positively fiendish. “And I found her!”
“Nicholas Stuart!” Jane was horrified. He had gone from being traumatized to actually enjoying this. “How awful to find it fun that someone has died, and like that! Besides, who would have wanted to kill her? And why?”
“I don’t know, Mom. Why do you think People magazine called you North Jersey’s Miss Marple?” He wiggled his eyebrows the way Kenneth used to when he was at his most devilish. “You’re the detective! You figure it out. And while you’re at it, figure out why whoever killed her smeared that makeup all over her face.” And he vanished back into the garage.
“Oh, missus,” Florence said ominously, looking at Jane in a whole new way, and she turned and followed Nick outside.
Jane stood in the middle of the kitchen, thinking about what Nick had just said. He was absolutely right. Why hadn’t she seen it?
Someone had killed that poor girl, strung her up right there among the trees not six feet from the backyard of Hydrangea House.
Someone who, quite possibly, lived right here in Shady Hills.