Charlotte arrived at work the next morning to find Aaron seated at her desk stroking the mink hat on his lap.
“Have you thought about getting a cat?” Charlotte asked.
Aaron laughed. “I don’t think my aunt would allow that. Of course, if I had my own place . . .”
“Well, just hang in there a little longer. It’ll happen. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
“I guess so,” said Aaron. “If you say so. Anyway,” he lifted the hat, “did you ask Mrs. Van Dusen if we could keep it? I thought I’d work on the ears today when there’s no matinee, and it’s Romeo and Juliet tonight, so the hat isn’t needed.”
“Good plan. Yes, we can keep it. What did you have in mind for the ears?”
Aaron unpinned the socks stuffed with tissue paper and set them aside. “I thought about using a faux fur, but now I think a dark-brown felt with a bit of pale pink for a lining. I don’t know. What do you think? I’m not really sure what a donkey’s ears look like, but I think what I’ve got in mind will look good onstage.”
“The main thing is that the audience gets the message that Bottom has been transformed into a donkey, so they should be fairly large.” Aaron walked over to the shelving where the fabrics were stored and held up the hat to various bolts.
“If you don’t see anything you like, talk to Mr. Grafstein at the Uptown Silk Shoppe,” said Charlotte. “He’s sure to have a remnant that will be perfect, and you won’t need very much. He might even give it to you.” She joined him in front of the fabrics, took the hat from him, and turned it around in her hands. “I’ve just had an idea,” she said. “Before you make the ears, you could make a bendable frame out of something light, like florist wire. That way you could bend the tips if you wanted to, and you’d be sure they would stand up straight.” She put the hat on her head. “How do I look?”
Aaron smiled at her. “You look pretty good, but I think it’s too far back. It would look better sitting more forward”—he reached up to adjust it—“like this.”
Charlotte checked herself in the mirror. “Yes, it does look better more straight on.”
Charlotte took the hat off and smoothed her hair. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about what happened the night of the play at the Van Dusen estate when the donkey’s head went missing. Did you see anyone hanging around who shouldn’t have been there?”
“There were people all over the place. Actors, crew, guests. How would I know who shouldn’t have been there? I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.”
“It’s just that at one point I thought I saw Belinda running across the lawn, but what you did just now when you adjusted the hat on my head reminded me of something. It couldn’t have been Belinda I saw, because at the time, she would have been getting her hair done.”
“Okay.” He drew out the word.
“Are you with me?”
“No.”
“You saw Belinda when she entered the ballroom. Her hairdo was elaborate and had a tiara set in it. That hairstyle would have taken at least an hour to do, plus, she had to get dressed. So she couldn’t have been the one I saw running across the lawn.”
“One of the bridesmaids, maybe? Sophie’s blonde. Could have been her.”
“Possibly. Or I thought when I saw Alex at the dinner party that it could have been her. We know she was at the play because she served drinks at the after party.”
Aaron wrapped the hat in tissue paper and placed it in a bag. “Could be, I guess. Anyway, I’ll be off now to see about some fabric. I thought I’d walk. Do you want me to take Rupert with me?”
“No. Although I find this impossible to understand, Mr. Grafstein isn’t keen on him. And you certainly can’t leave him tied up outside with dog thieves on the loose, so no, but thank you for offering. He’ll stay here with me. Enjoy yourself, and I’ll see you later.”
“Well, if Rupert isn’t coming with me, I’ll drive and maybe do a couple of errands for my aunt while I’m out.”
Aaron set off, and Charlotte busied herself tidying up the workspace. She was just starting to think about a cup of coffee when someone knocked on her open door. She turned around to see Fletcher Macmillan.
“Oh, Fletcher, it’s you. Come in.”
“Hope I’m not intruding. Won’t take up much of your time, but I wondered if I could have a word. Been interviewing Simon about the new theater school. It’s going to be big news in these parts. Need a quote from you.”
“Oh, right. What would you like to know?”
They talked about the theater school for a few minutes, and Fletcher told her Simon had asked him to be a guest speaker every now and then to explain to the students how the media works and how to give an engaging interview.
“That sounds like a good idea,” said Charlotte. “And speaking of how media works, how are you coming along with the story about Lynda Flegg’s missing dog?”
“Oh, I’m working on it,” said Fletcher. “I’ve been assigned this feature about your school, and I’m also working on the Hugh Hedley murder. The Albany police haven’t been very forthcoming, I must say. I wondered if you’d heard anything new.”
“Me? Why would they tell me anything?”
“Well, not the Albany police, but I thought you might have picked up something from your boyfriend.”
“Absolutely not. He never tells me anything, and quite right, too. Operational, you know.”
“It seems a shame, though, that Hedley should have been killed so soon after . . .” His voice trailed off. “But no, I mustn’t keep you. I know how busy you are.”
“So soon after what?”
When Fletcher did not reply, Charlotte pressed him. “You might as well tell me, Fletcher. All I’ve got to do is Google him.”
“Well, his mother died in an accident not very long ago.”
“Oh, that’s terrible.” She thought for a moment. “Did she live around here? What was her name?”
“She was from here but lived in Albany. Her name was Joanna . . . something. I can’t recall. Not Hedley, though.”
“Oh, so I guess Hedley must have been . . .”
“Her first husband. Hugh’s father.”
“Of course. And this accident. Was it a car crash?”
“No, it was a hiking accident up on Devil’s Path. She lost her footing on a very steep section and fell, apparently.”
“Devil’s Path. I’ve heard of that. It’s dangerous and recommended for experienced climbers only. Was she an experienced climber, I wonder?”
“Don’t know. You’d assume so.”
“Yes, you would do.”
She looked at her watch. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, Fletcher, I’ve got several things I must get done this morning, so best be getting on. And do, please, follow up with Lynda about her dog. Mrs. Van Dusen is offering a reward, so you might want to include that in your story.”
When she was sure he was well out of earshot, she picked up her phone and called Lynda.
“I’ve just been speaking to that awful Fletcher Macmillan,” she said. “I reminded him he needed to get in touch with you about Mandy’s story, and if you don’t hear from him today, then you should call him and you should keep calling him until he does it.”
And Lynda had some news for Charlotte, too. She’d managed to arrange a private viewing of the Middleton property with Joseph Lamb.
*
An hour later, Charlotte walked up the sidewalk that led to the front door of the Middleton property, where Lynda Flegg and Joseph Lamb had just arrived.
“Good timing,” said Lynda, after introducing Lamb to Charlotte. “Mr. Lamb has to check on something, so we can do a quick tour of the property, and then, if it interests you, we can arrange a second viewing, where you can take longer and bring your partners.”
Joseph Lamb unlocked the door, and the three stepped into a small entranceway. An interior door with decorative glass panels opened into the hallway proper. Ahead of them lay a large, old-fashioned kitchen, and to their right, an oak stairway led to the second floor. On their left was a large living room with an adjoining dining room, with another door that opened to the kitchen.
As Lamb disappeared upstairs, Lynda directed Charlotte to the living room. The wooden floor creaked under their weight, and a smell of old furniture polish, books, dust, and candle wax mixed with a large swirl of abandonment greeted them. It was as if the house knew, somehow, that the woman who had called this empty place home for all her married life would never be coming back.
“I know,” said Lynda. “Sad, isn’t it? Lamb brings in someone to clean every few weeks, but you just can’t get away from the emptiness. I wish the owner had let me clear out all the personal effects and do a bit of staging, but she wouldn’t hear of it. What can you do? Still, here’s my advice when looking at properties—don’t let emotion get in the way. It’s just about the structure. Don’t think about the décor. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard people tell me, ‘I don’t like the table.’ They’re not buying the table! And fixtures, paint, and wallpaper can all be changed. So ignore all that. Just think about the size of the rooms and whether the space will work for you. And walls can be knocked down and rooms made larger.”
Charlotte nodded, although it was difficult to overlook the 1970s colonial furniture. A boxy, shapeless sofa in a brown-and-yellow pattern, worn, frayed, and dirty at one end where someone had sat eating and watching the floor-model television; a matching overstuffed armchair; and a coffee table with a couple of drawers filled much of the space. The dining room held a table that could probably be configured to seat eight, an oversized hutch filled with a dinner service in a popular rose pattern, and drawers that Charlotte expected would contain a set of silverware. A silver tea service sat on a side table.
At the sound of footsteps descending the stairs, Lynda whispered, “We’d better get upstairs for a quick look around. He’ll be impatient to lock up.” The two women brushed past the lawyer at the bottom of the stairs and hurried up to the second floor.
They peered in the bedrooms, some with peeling wallpaper and dirty windows, until they came to a large double room at the end of the corridor.
“Mrs. Middleton’s room,” said Lynda. “A good size. Could be a classroom, possibly.” Charlotte stepped into the room and walked around the double bed, with its mattress sagging slightly in the middle, covered by a quilt, to the dresser under the window. She peered out the window to the garden below, but as she turned back to the room, the handbag over her shoulder caught the corner of a picture frame and tipped it over.
“Are you ladies ready to go?” called Joseph Lamb from the downstairs hallway. “I haven’t got all day.”
“We have to go, Charlotte,” urged Lynda. “He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“Right.” She picked up the frame and set it back up, catching a glimpse of a photo of a seated woman with two little girls, one dark haired and the other fair.
The two women returned to the ground floor, where Joseph Lamb was waiting for them with the front door open.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said. “Mr. Lamb, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but I saw the photo in the paper of you talking to Hugh Hedley. Did you know him well?”
Lamb scowled at her and did not reply. As he locked the door behind them and pocketed the key, Charlotte continued: “I’d like to bring my partners back for a viewing as soon as it can be arranged. When do you think we could do that?”
“I’ll check my diary and let Lynda know,” he said. “She’ll be in touch. Good-bye.”
“Would you like to come back to my bungalow for an iced tea?” Charlotte asked Lynda when Lamb had reached his vehicle. “I’d like to talk about the property.”
“Of course.”
After Rupert had given them an exuberant greeting, they took their drinks to a little table set outside the bungalows facing the river.
“The Middleton house—is it structurally sound, do you know?” Charlotte asked when they had settled into a couple of Adirondack chairs. Rupert wandered restlessly around for a few minutes and finally settled at Charlotte’s feet, his feathery back legs stretched out behind him in what corgi owners call a sploot.
“I believe so,” said Lynda. “But it would need new heating and air conditioning and a new roof. And I imagine you would get an architect to draw up some designs. He’d come up with creative ideas to maximize the space.”
“Possibly,” said Charlotte. “It’s funny, you know, how I must have driven and walked past that place hundreds of times without really giving it much thought. It’s always just been . . .”
“There?” suggested Lynda.
“Exactly. But now I’m very curious about the lives that were lived in that house. It felt quite sad, somehow.”
“Well, Mr. Middleton, who died a few years ago, was a lawyer in the same firm as Joseph Lamb, actually. They did general law, wills, real estate, some family stuff, like adoptions. Basic small-town legal stuff. No courtroom trials or anything like that. Which is probably why Mrs. Middleton wants a lawyer handling every aspect of the house sale.”
“About that. The asking price seems way too high for the condition of the property, and if we make an offer, it will be much lower.”
“That’s fine. People selling houses have a price in mind, but what they don’t realize is that the house is worth what somebody’s willing to pay for it. And that’s it. So you decide what you’re willing to pay for it, and I’m obliged to present the offer, then she can decide what she wants to do about it.”
“With Joseph Lamb looking after her interests, is she still capable of making decisions?”
“Oh, yes. Mentally there’s nothing wrong with her. It’s her heart that’s failing.”
“And she’s in a nursing home?”
“Yes. Quite a nice one in Saugerties.”
“The photo I saw in her bedroom. She had two daughters?”
“I didn’t see the picture, so I’m not sure who they were, but I think Mrs. Middleton just had the one daughter. Sorry, I don’t know all the family details. Although now that I come to think of it, her husband was a senator at one time, I believe.” She drained the last of her iced tea. “Thanks for the tea. I’d better be going. As soon as I hear from Lamb about a second viewing appointment, I’ll be in touch.”
As she stood up, Brian Prentice came around the corner of the bungalow and greeted them.
“I was just on my way to the hotel and saw you here. Thought I’d say hello.” He nodded at Charlotte and turned on his smile for Lynda. “How are you, Lynda?”
His face looked open and relaxed, the smile genuine, and Charlotte inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. It looked as if whatever had been bothering him had passed.
“I was just leaving, actually,” said Lynda. “I’ll walk along to the hotel with you, since you’re going that way.”
“Oh, splendid.”
Charlotte picked up the empty glasses, and she and Rupert followed them to the path that led in one direction to the hotel, which Lynda and Brian took, and in the other to her bungalow.
She set the glasses in the sink and, when Rupert was settled in his basket, got out her laptop and Googled retirement and nursing homes in Saugerties. Ten minutes later, with a list of four prospects beside her phone, she dialed the first number.
“Hello,” she said to the woman who answered the phone. “I wonder if you have a Mrs. Middleton living there.” She listened and then replied, “No, sorry, I don’t know her first name.” She was then told, in any case, a Mrs. Middleton did not reside there. Charlotte thanked her and then sent Lynda a text asking for Mrs. Middleton’s first name. A moment later, her phone pinged with the reply. June.
Charlotte continued with the calls, asking if a June Middleton lived there. Finally, on her fourth attempt, she heard what she’d been waiting for. Yes, June Middleton was one of their residents.
“Would it be all right if I came to visit her?” Charlotte asked. “I’m sort of a neighbor of hers, and since I’ll be in Saugerties tomorrow or the next day, I wondered if I could pop in and say hello?” When told that would be fine, she hung up and wrote down the address.
She opened the fridge, took out the pitcher of iced tea, and poured herself another glass. With Rupert beside her, she went back outside to think about June Middleton and why she wanted to visit her. Because something about the photograph she’d seen in Mrs. Middleton’s room puzzled her. And then she realized it wasn’t the photograph that puzzled her; it was why it was there. She didn’t have a lot of experience with seniors in nursing homes, but on the few occasions she’d visited one, the elderly people were surrounded by photographs of people they’d loved or who had loved them. Old black-and-white photos in silver frames, school photos showing a grinning child with a missing tooth, soldiers in uniform, a young bride and groom, a beloved dog . . . a memory that lasted a lifetime caught in the fleeting moment of a photograph. Such mementos were apparently important to those with failing memories, Charlotte had read, for people who couldn’t remember yesterday or last year or the person who just left who had called her “mom.” But they could remember fifty years ago and even the day the photo had been taken. So it seemed odd that June Middleton, whose heart was failing but whose mind was sound, hadn’t taken the photo of the two little girls with her. If it had been precious or significant enough to sit on the dresser in her old Walkers Ridge home, why wouldn’t she have taken it with her to the nursing home in Saugerties? Maybe she had other photos that were newer or meant more to her.
Charlotte’s thoughts turned to her own mother, now over seventy, living on her own in England. When Charlotte had made the decision ten years ago to stay behind in New York and that decision, meant to last only a few weeks, turned into a life-changing one, she hadn’t thought about her parents. But since she’d been living in America, her father had died, and with her mother approaching a new stage in her life, Charlotte now realized that the decision hadn’t been hers alone to make. She should have involved her parents more, because living here had profoundly affected their lives, too.
And if she married Ray, she would probably never return to England to live. Her mother would grow old, alone, and Charlotte wasn’t sure she was prepared to carry that heavy emotional burden.
As she finished her drink, Aaron’s car turned into the hotel driveway, so she and Rupert walked over to the parking lot to meet him, and they walked together to the costume room.
“I saw Brian in town,” Aaron said. “He’s looking better. More relaxed. He was with Lynda.” He pulled the mink hat and some dark, felted material out of a bag and laid them on the worktable. “What do you think?” he asked Charlotte.
“Fine, good,” she said. “I thought Brian looked better, too. More confident, somehow.”
Aaron pulled out a piece of pattern paper and began sketching what he thought the hat should look like, then drew several shapes in different sizes that looked like leaves. “I’ll cut these out,” he explained, “so we can see what size works best.”
“How do you feel about taking a little drive to Saugerties tomorrow?” Charlotte asked. He didn’t look up from his work but shrugged an okay. “Good. I want to visit someone in a nursing home. We’ll stop on the way for flowers. Well, I’ll leave you to get on with your work. Would you like a coffee?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks.”
“I think I’ll make a cup of tea then.” A room, barely larger than a closet off the main workroom, housed a tiny kitchenette—a kettle, sink, microwave, and bar fridge. Charlotte plugged in the kettle, and as she waited for it to boil, her phone rang. She checked the name: Ray. He was calling to tell her he wouldn’t be home for dinner. Did she want him to spend the night at his own place, or would she mind if he arrived late?
“What’s happening with the investigation?” she asked.
When he told her, she said he should come to her as soon as he could.
She liked her tea made properly. She swished some hot water from the kettle around in a small, brown pot to warm it, tipped the water into the sink, then added loose tea to the pot, covered it with hot water, and left it to steep.
“There’s been a development in the Hugh Hedley case,” she said, walking into the workroom.
Aaron stopped snipping and, scissors poised, looked at her.
“They’ve made an arrest?”
“Not quite. The police have gone into Manhattan to interview Adrian Archer, and Gino Bartucci’s been picked up here in Walkers Ridge and brought in for questioning. The police are unhappy about their business dealings with Hugh and are taking a closer look at their alibis.”
“I always thought that Bartucci was a weasel.”
“When did you meet him?”
“Well, I didn’t really, but I saw him in action in the theater when he arrived late and disturbed everybody.”
“Oh, right. Well, at least you didn’t have to sit beside him at dinner.”
“Do you think he did it? Killed Hugh Hedley, I mean.”
Charlotte shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. It’s starting to look as if several people had a reason to want Hugh Hedley dead.”
They turned their attention back to the hat. “So you’ve got one ear pinned on here. Put the hat on and let me see if it’s in the right place. Oh, and the hat’s just reminded me that I need to go to Oakland and pick up a dress. Maybe we could do that this afternoon. If you’ve got nothing better to do, I’ll make the arrangements.”