part0014

“Jessie!” Candy scolded. “You know Karen loves cocoa. She’s a chocoholic.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not that cocoa. The cousin Coco.” I identified Coco Rigby, but Candy had never heard of that Coco.

“Well, hopefully you’ll meet her today,” I said. “She’ll be shopping with Belinda Marachini.” I let that sink in. “Do you understand, Sweetie?”

Bless her heart, she did. Candy caught on quickly to what had taken me several minutes to recollect. Her best customer Belinda Marachini is also Pierpont Rigby’s, and Coco Rigby’s, auntie. And Candy and Mrs. Marachini have quite a bond—together they were responsible for introducing Karen and Pierpont. Belinda Marachini knew her nephew needed work done on his house, and Candy knew Karen, and the rest is history.

“But do not mention Karen to them,” I said.

“What should I do?” Candy asked.

“Snoop,” she clarified. “Got it.”

She hung up, and I glanced around. Speaking of snooping, it seemed I had the drawing room all to myself.

Alas, sometimes snooping isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I wandered around opening drawers and doors of this and that piece of furniture, but found nothing of interest. “Karen’s linen closet was more intriguing,” I told the grandfather clock.

Abigail Witherspoon had been dusting near that clock the previous night. I stepped forward, and my focus landed on a display case of guns. I know nothing about guns, but even I could tell these were antiques. I tried the latch.

Locked. Which even I knew was a good thing—

“Hounds!” someone said, and I jumped ten feet.

“Just little old me!” I said as I landed. I tried smiling at the Witherspoons. “I, umm—”

“Where is Mr. Rigby?” Abigail demanded.

“Upstairs in the west wing bath—”

She spun around and was gone.

Gerald blinked twice. “Abigail!” he hollered and disappeared also.

Needless to say, I abandoned the gun case.

For the record, Gerald Witherspoon can be quite speedy when he sets his mind to it. Even so, he was no match for his wife. Abigail raced up the mile-long staircase and crisscrossed the west wing hallways at something approaching warp-speed, and Gerald and I broke into a jog to keep up.

“Abigail!” he kept calling, and Abigail kept ignoring him.

She reached her destination, stopped short. “Hounds!” she screeched, and Piers and Al emerged from that dreadful bathroom just as the rest of us caught up.

“I must apologize, sir.” Gerald spoke from behind his wife. “I took the liberty of mentioning the hounds to Abiga—”

“Hounds!” She repeated her rallying cry and thrashed her feather duster about.

“Abigail is most concerned, sir.”

“I see that,” Piers said quietly.

“Sir!” she cried. “Think about your belongings! Your mother’s Faberge eggs, your father’s Cartier clocks, your great uncle’s guns, the crystal, the china, the Tiffany, the porcelain—”

“Yes, but my girlfriend. ”

“Will pop up, sir. People always get misplaced, but they always pop up. Even Uncle Oscar! Without the need of—” She shivered. “—infernal beasts.”

“The dogs are trained,” Al said, and Abigail turned on him.

She stabbed an index finger at his chest. “Hounds are large, slobbering, infernal beasts!” she proclaimed, and the cop admitted bloodhounds do tend to drool.

“Abigail, please,” her husband tried, and she again appealed to her employer.

Piers patted her shoulder and thanked her for her concern. “But I’m confident you and your staff can clean up any drool.”

“Of course, sir!” Abigail assured him she and her ‘girls’ would handle any mess the hounds cared to create. “But what if they break something?”

Piers murmured some nonsense about the hounds being extra-cautious, and Al interrupted once more. “That’s tomorrow’s business,” he said. “Today I’m interviewing the staff.” He pointed back and forth between the Witherspoons. “Starting with you two.”

“Interview?” Abigail asked, and Gerald coughed. “Oh!” she said. “Because you think it’s an inside job.”

Al skipped a beat. “How do you know that?”

“Gerald told me.” She turned to Piers. “Will you be at the interviews, sir?”

Piers smiled kindly but shook his head. “Can I count on you to cooperate with Lieutenant Kapinski, Abigail?”

“Of course, sir.”

“And you’ll see to it the rest of the staff cooperates?”

The housekeeper offered a curt nod, and her ever-cooperative husband bowed. “Might I be so bold as to suggest the interviews be conducted below stairs?” he asked.

“Whatever,” Al answered. He instructed Piers and me to “go outside and play” and allowed himself to be ushered away, and the three of them disappeared behind a door halfway down the hall .

“A back staircase to the servants’ quarters?” I asked, and Piers informed me the Rigby mansion has a dozen such staircases.

“I do not want to play outside,” I said peevishly as we took the main staircase. “I want to observe those interviews.”

Piers shot me a sideways glance. “What have you observed so far?” he asked, and I point blank told him his housekeeper’s priorities were warped.

“Karen’s in danger, and Abigail’s worried about dog drool?”

He asked me to try to understand Abigail’s perspective. “It’s her job to take care of all this junk.” We reached the foyer, and Piers waved a hand at the Impressionist masterpieces lining the walls. “And remember, this is her home, too.”

I asked how long the Witherspoons had lived there, and the answer was forever. Gerald’s parents had worked for Pierpont’s parents, and Abigail came on as an upper housemaid when Piers was a child.

“Which is why she knows about Great Uncle Oscar,” I said.

“Abigail’s the one who found him.”

I stopped short. “In the fourth pantry?”

“Mother promoted her to head housekeeper after that.” He ushered me into the drawing room, and I took what was becoming my standard spot on the blue brocade couch.

I pointed to the coffee table. “Your staff certainly is efficient,” I said, and Piers listed three maids who might have cleared away the coffee service while we were upstairs. I confessed I was jealous. “Wilson calls me a neat freak.”

“But if you value your privacy, you don’t want a staff,” Piers twirled a finger overhead and told me the walls have ears.

I thought about it. “Which is why Gerald already knows Al’s inside-job theory.”

Piers sighed. “The walls have ears, and the staff has their grapevine. Which is why Abigail and the rest of the staff always know everything Gerald does. ”

“Should we be whispering?” I whispered, but he shook his head.

“At the moment, all ears are pinned to the walls of the servants parlor. So?” He leaned forward. “Tell me what else you’ve observed.”

“Gerald’s exceedingly formal manner,” I said. “All the bowing, and he calls me madam, and you the master.” I shrugged. “It seems rather archaic.”

“I blame that PBS show you mentioned last night.”

I blinked twice. “Don’t tell me Gerald’s a fan?”

“The biggest. That show has changed his whole demeanor, Jessie. For instance, he used to call me plain old Mr. Rigby, and I used to call him Gerry.”

“Gerry?” I was incredulous.

“Gerry and Abby. But whatever we call them, the Witherspoons are my most trusted employees.” Piers pointed to a pen and ink drawing in an ornate gilt frame. If memory served from the house tours, it was a Chagall. “The household safe is behind that,” Piers said. “Let’s pretend I forgot and left it open, and let’s pretend I keep two million dollars in small bills in there.”

“We’re pretending. And let’s pretend I left town for a few days, and put Gerald and Abigail in charge during my absence. Which I do, by the way. So?” he asked. “What would they do?”

I squinted at the Chagall. “Gerald would stand around, wringing his hands and wondering if it would be presumptuous to close your safe,” I said. “And Abigail would take the opportunity to dust your money.”

“A-plus!” Piers clapped and stood up, and pulled me to my feet.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He grinned and guided me to the French doors leading outside, and we emerged onto a patio overlooking the rolling hills of the Rigby Estate. In the far distance were the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“Griffondale Castle certainly has a lovely view,” I observed .

I tore my eyes from the scene. “Adelé Nightingale would like permission to use your estate as the setting for her latest masterpiece.”

Piers told me he would be honored, and tilted his head toward the grounds before us. “But right now I want Jessie Hewitt to meet more of my staff.”

“Al told us to stay out of trouble, Piers.”

“No.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Al told us to go outside and play.”

I told my host I like the way he thinks, he proffered his arm, and together we proceeded down the garden path.