part0029

I timed it well. My arrival at Tate’s helped me stall on that errand I was so studiously avoiding, and as luck will have it, Candy was free to talk. Instead of juggling customers on the sales floor, she was stationed in the storage room juggling discarded bras—or more specifically, affixing them onto those annoying little hangers.

“I don’t understand,” she said as she wrestled a pink lace bra into submission. “Why can’t you talk to him in Piers’s garden?”

“Because he’s a workaholic,” I said. “Intuition dictates Caesar will be far more chatty if I get him off the estate.”

Candy hung the pink jobbie on the rack between us and rescued a beige sports bra from the discard bin. “But isn’t the gardener a suspect, Jessie? Wilson’s gonna kill you.”

“That’s Karen’s line,” I said. “And as I always tell her, what else is new?”

“Nothing if you’re inviting a killer up to our roof. Remember what happened last time?”

“I almost got killed.” I waved an impatient hand. “But that was ages ago.”

Candy rolled her eyes, and I moved on. “Anyway,” I said. “Today’s challenge isn’t Caesar, it’s Ian. He’s my next stop.”

The sports bra floated to the floor. “What? Are you feeling well?”

Not really. And as I retrieved the bra and handed it over, I conceded a visit to my lowdown, no-good, conniving, cheating, and altogether despicable ex-husband would likely not improve my mood. “I came here for moral support, Sweetie.”

“You’ll need it. Why Ian?”

Because my ex-husband Ian Crawcheck is now married to the equally no-good Amanda Fister-Crawcheck. “Fister,” I repeated until Candy caught on.

“Oh!” she said. “The un-wealthy side of the family Mrs. Marachini was telling us about. I thought you acted kind of strange about that.”

“You’re really gonna talk to Amanda?” Candy remained incredulous. “Like, on purpose?”

“Anything for Karen,” I said, but truth be told, I did hope to avoid that particular extreme. “I’ll visit Ian first, and hopefully he’ll tell me what I’m after.”

“What are you after?”

I shrugged again. “Something—anything—about the Rigby-Marachini-Fister family connection. No stone left unturned and all that.”

Candy sighed and moved on to the next bra—a rather large black satin specimen. “Piers and Mrs. Marachini are so nice and Amanda’s so not nice,” she said. “If you ask me that DNA stuff can’t be real.”

Okay, so I chose not to attempt a biology lesson in the stock room of Tate’s bra department, and instead moved on to another not-so-nice person, namely Jimmy Beak.

Candy gasped. “Does he know about Karen? Please say no, Jessie.”

“No,” I said, but mentioned the unfortunate imperative that the media be kept abreast on Wayne Stasson’s murder. “Wilson’s holding a press conference this evening,” I continued. “I wish you could watch it with me. Ian Crawcheck and Jimmy Beak, all in one day? I’ll definitely need moral support.”

“But the Extravaganza Sale.” She fluttered her polka-dot manicure at the rack of bras, but then jumped. “I know!” she said. “You can watch it with Carter.”

“Carter will give you moral support.”

I managed not to cringe.

“Really, Jessie. You’ll like having Carter as a neighbor. You’ll see.”

I continued not cringing.

Candy frowned. “Can’t you please try to have an open mind? Pretty please?”

I took a deep breath and promised to try, and my young friend continued with the bright ideas, suggesting I watch the press conference in Carter’s condo. “He’s real excited for you to see the place,” she said. “I’ll call and let him know you’re coming, Jessie. What time?”

Time to face the music, or at least the ex-husband. I braced myself and made the phone call from my car, and Ian quickly adopted his usual civil tone. “What do you want?” he snapped. “I’m busy here.”

No he wasn’t. Through every fault of his own, Ian Crawcheck’s once-thriving CPA firm failed a while back, and he lost his CPA license. Nowadays he runs a not-so-thriving bookkeeping service out of a tiny office on Vine Street, which happens to be right around the corner from Sullivan Street. Trust me, not my idea.

“What do you want?” he demanded again.

“To chat,” I told my steering wheel. “I’ll be right over. Toodle-oo.”

“Oo,” I said and hung up. I parked at home, took the two-minute walk to Vine Street, and climbed the narrow staircase to Ian’s office.

He opened his door after only one knock, and we exchanged a mutual snarl before he waved me to a chair. He took the seat behind his desk and ever-so-cordially told me to get to the point.

I mentioned Karen Sembler. Don’t panic—I didn’t mention the kidnapping, but instead used the same premise the Candy had devised for our lunch with Mrs. Marachini. I spouted off some nonsense about Karen’s rather un-blue blood as compared to Pierpont Rigby’s. “I’m wondering what his family thinks of this romance,” I said.

Ian shook his head. “And you’re asking me? You’re the supposed romance expert, Adelé.”

“But you’re married to Amanda now,” I said. “And I do believe she’s some sort of distant relation to Pierpon—”

“Distant!?” A shriek from the stairwell, and we both jumped. Frizzy hair, frumpy body, and what my mother would phrase an eternally sour expression on her face—the one and only Amanda Fister-Crawcheck barged into the cramped office and landed squarely in front of yours truly. “What do you mean, distant?”

“Hello, Amanda. What a pleasan—” Okay, so I stopped myself. I’m simply not that good an actress. While Ian steered a worn-out chair toward his wife’s derriere, I stated the truth. No, really. I told the woman I had not expected to see her that afternoon.

“Ha! I’m sure you didn’t.” She plopped herself into the chair provided, and I shot an enquiring glance Ian-ward.

“I promised to let Amanda know anytime we see each other,” he mumbled. “I called her right after we hung up.”

I promised myself an Advil the moment I got home, Ian sat back down, and Amanda reached over and snapped her fingers about an inch away from my nose. “I know what you’re up to,” she told me.

“Your little gold-digging friend sent you.”

“Don’t play dumb. Your carpenter pal. She sent you here to find out how much my cousin is worth before she robs him blind.” Amanda curled her lip. “Little gold-digging hussy.”

I tilted my head. “Have you ever met Karen?”

“I don’t have to! I know what she’s doing in that mansion. Fixing his plumbing, my foot.”

Okay, so this wasn’t exactly the tone of conversation one might have hoped for, but bless her mean-spirited heart, Amanda was right on topic. I smiled at the irony and soldiered on. “Does everyone in the family feel the same way?” I asked. “About Karen, that is?”

“Oh, spare me. The Rigbys refuse to see what’s right under their noses, and the Marachinis always take the Rigbys’ side on everything. It’s up to us Fisters to speak the truth.” She huffed and puffed. “As if our opinions count for anything. The Rigbys would like to forget we even exist.”

I couldn’t imagine why, but I cleared my throat and pressed on. “Does any particular Fister disapprove of Karen? ”

“Try every single one of us. She’s a carpenter, Jessie! A laborer! A servant!” Amanda turned to her husband. “Why don’t we have any servants, huh? Answer me that!”

Ian failed to answer. He smiled wanly, and his wife shifted the attack back to me. “Your carpenter pal is an over-paid servant.”

“Servant.” I tapped my chin and pretended to consider Amanda’s assessment. “I wonder how Pierpont Rigby treats others on his staff,” I said, and good old Amanda took the bait.

“Try perfectly,” she said. “It’s perfectly disgusting.”

“He spoils them! He throws his money away on every single one of them. What about the Fisters? Does he ever throw money at us? On me?”

From her tone, one would assume the answer was no. However, I concentrated on the servants and enquired whom in particular, other than my gold-digging friend, Piers was apt to throw his money at.

“Duh! Try the butler, the head housemaid, the guy who shovels out the stable stalls, the gardener. Oh yeah! Especially the stupid garden—”

“Don’t forgot the chauffeur,” Ian chimed in. He turned to me. “She’s a woman, Jessie. And she’s his pilot, too. She’s really cute—”

“Shut up, Ian.” Amanda huffed and puffed, perhaps in a vain attempt to calm herself down. “Who could forget Pierpont’s sweet, precious little pet Mallory?” she asked eventually. “That stupid servant gets to go everywhere.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “But back to the gardener. You say Piers throws money at him?”

She shook her head. “Like his mother before him. That cranky old gardener was Aunt Isobel’s special pet.”

I blinked twice. “So, umm, Pierpont’s mother gave money to the gardener? In addition to his regular salary?”

“Duh! But do the Rigbys ever do anything for the Fisters? Or for me?”

Ian gamely raised his hand. “There’s the garden club, Amanda.”

She snarled. “Of course you’d bring that up, Ian. ”

“Bring what up?” I asked, and despite Amanda’s best efforts to shush her husband, Ian explained how Piers had been instrumental in getting her accepted into the Clarence Garden Society. For the record, the local garden club is rather exclusive, and one must be invited by a current member to be considered. I’ve never been interested, but Amanda? Oh, yeah.

Apparently Piers had made a few phone calls on her behalf, and after some concerted effort and several reminders of his deceased mother’s decades-long devotion and support of their organization, the Garden Society powers that be had acquiesced and invited Amanda to join.

She snapped her fingers in my face again. “You and that hussy gold-digging friend will never get in. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Excellent!” I stood up. “And speaking of gardens, I really must be toodling along.”

“Toodle?” Ian asked.

“To work,” I said. “Mars Covington, the hero in my current masterpiece, is a gardener.” I smiled and thanked both Crawchecks for their valuable time, and turned to leave.