Appraisal for Murder (10 page)

“She was quiet but she had a great sense of humor. Not everyone got to see that side of her. If you didn’t, it was your loss.” She stopped again. “And she loved her son, with all her heart.”

When she sat down next to me, Aunt Madge stared straight ahead. I touched her on the arm and was surprised to see a tear leaving each eye.

We moved as lemmings from the church to the cemetery, where I saw Sgt. Morehouse at the edge of the group of mourners. It was pure cop TV. After that, we went to the Riordan’s house. I might have skipped that, but Aunt Madge had made three loaves of cheddar cheese bread and insisted on taking them. This was a much smaller group, as tends to be the case.

The house looked nothing short of elegant with the well-dressed crowd moving around the dining room sampling the plates of canapés. A maid in a black uniform and white apron served white wine from a silver tray. She looked either very sad or very tired, and I wondered if she’d been hired for the day or had known Mrs. Riordan well. If she had, it must be tough to have to serve food while everyone else could take the time to grieve.

I saw Jennifer Stenner on the other side of the room. Her blue suit struck the appropriate conservative tone of a funeral, but the white blouse afforded a good view of her firm cleavage, which I guessed was helped by an underwire bra. This I do not normally associate with proper mourning attire.

I had wanted Harry to come because it would be a good place to meet a lot of folks, but he had demurred. Since the only time he had seen Michael was the day his mother died, Harry thought his presence would be a reminder of a difficult day. Such a gentleman. Not good for business.

As I stood filling a plate with assorted goodies, Jennifer approached me. “Jolie,” she said, “I wouldn’t have recognized you.” This was an unkind reference to the fact that I looked much better these days than I had in the camouflage pants I wore half the time in eleventh grade. In retrospect, the bangs in my eyes hadn’t helped, either.

“You look about the same,” I said evenly. “Same blonde Jennifer.” This was my revenge. The blonde had to come from a bottle as her hair had been brown in high school.

I was tempted to say something about the fact that she only spoke to me in high school if she bumped into me, but settled for, “Harry is a friend of my Aunt Madge’s. I’ve really grown to like him.”

“You certainly had a tough first day,” she said.

I nodded. “Tougher on Michael, though.”

She agreed and moved on to a group of women dressed as sleekly as she. She seemed to pay particular attention to a woman in a black silk suit that looked as if it might have cost a thousand dollars. I probably had gone to school with some of the women, but didn’t recognize them. None of the few friends I’d had lived here anymore, except Scoobie, of course. None of the women introduced themselves to me. I found that odd, but didn’t really care.

A short, older woman with loosely-permed white hair introduced herself as head of the First Presbyterian Social Services Committee. She said her name was Mrs. Henriette Jasper – “that’s Henriette dear, no ‘A’ at the end.” Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her two-piece dress of navy blue with white trim made me think of a sailor. She said that she regarded Ruth Riordan as the church member most devoted to helping the needy. “Your aunt’s remarks were wonderful. I wanted to say something, but I was just too choked up to speak.”

As she began to tell me how many truly needy people there were in Ocean Alley, Aunt Madge walked up and asked me to help clear away some dishes. She whispered that I would have “been there all day” otherwise, since Henriette tended to talk a great deal about her work with the church. I said this sounded like gossip, and Aunt Madge said it was a fact.

I helped Aunt Madge clear away empty paper plates that had accumulated around the living room, and wished we could leave. As I carried a pile of plates into the kitchen, I stumbled into a little girl who ran around a corner, straight into me. Red gelatin salad spilled down the front of my blouse, and I was barely able to stop myself from swearing loudly or knocking over a woman using a walker. Instead, after I steadied the fortunately good-natured woman, I assured the little girl’s mother that the blouse was washable and refused her offer to have it cleaned. It was pure silk, and the dry cleaner would have no more luck with red food color than I.
One for the waste basket.

I hurried to the kitchen sink, where the maid handed me a wet paper towel, saying nothing as she did so. “Oh, dear, that’s too bad.” Jennifer appeared at my side, daintily holding a glass of white wine.

“Yes, well, accidents happen.” I blotted at the stain with the paper towel. Useless. Plus, the wet blouse now offered a great outline of my right nipple.

I went back to the dining room and looked for Aunt Madge. She was talking to Larry Riordan. Not a lot of Ruth’s friends had sought him out. Aunt Madge saw me and beckoned. “Jolie, did you ever know Mr. Riordan?”

“Larry,” he said, extending his hand.

“I don’t think so. Sorry to meet you under these circumstances.” What else could I say?
How’s life with the young honey
? Just then, she walked up. Though her clothes were clearly expensive, the lines were not those of classic tailoring. Rather than an a-line fashion, the skirt of her rust-colored suit had a ruffle at the hem and the jacket had large buttons in a tiger-eye design. A person would only buy such an outfit if there were twenty others in the closet and she didn’t have to wear it one day with a yellow blouse and another day with tan.

“Jolie, this is my wife, Honey Riordan.”

Thank goodness I didn’t have anything in my mouth.
I sputtered a vague hello.

“Isn’t this a lovely home?” she gushed.

Could she be more tactless?
Maybe she would ask Michael for some of the furniture. “Yes, it is.” As she turned to look at some crystal figurines on a shelf, I turned to Aunt Madge. “I’d kind of like to change.” I gestured to my shirt. “Would you like me to come back for you?”

“No, I can leave now. I’ll just collect my bread board and butter plate.” We said goodbye to Larry and Honey (whose name I would certainly never forget) and headed for the kitchen.

Michael came up to us as Aunt Madge loaded the bread board into her carrying bag. “Sorry about the blouse,” he said, with a look of mischief.

I gave him a look I hoped would discourage further comment. “I probably did that to someone when I was her age.”

“More than once,” said Aunt Madge, absently.

“They say payback is a bi..bear.” He hesitated. “I wanted to thank you both for being so supportive. I know I’m not the easiest person to be around.”

Jennifer came up and took him by the arm in a very possessive fashion. “Dear Michael. I just wanted to say goodbye and to let you know to call anytime.”

I have to admit, I was pleased that he did not look happy about the interruption.
What do you care?
I don’t.
Or, I don’t think I do.

SURE ENOUGH, the next day the police arrested Michael just as he returned to town from dropping his father and Honey at the airport. The next day’s paper said the bail hearing had been held two hours after he was arrested, and implied that not everyone would get this courtesy. However, the
Ocean Alley Press
did not detail the county prosecuting attorney’s basis for filing the charges. It said the prosecuting attorney was “not releasing all of the evidence at this time.” I resisted the temptation to call George Winters, who might know more. He would only turn the call into an interview.

I DID AN APPRAISAL A DAY for the next three days, often looking over my shoulder for Joe Pedone. It seemed he had forgotten me and returned to whatever hole he’d crawled out of. I figured if he was going to bug me again he would have already been back. I began to relax.

Harry was very happy with my work, and was teaching me to use the computer-aided appraisal software. Years ago I had done my drawings by hand.

Three days after the funeral Michael called and asked that I return to finish the appraisal. He told Harry that, given all the stuff going on, he would stay at the house while I worked. I was glad to hear that, since I wasn’t looking forward to measuring Mrs. Riordan’s bedroom. Plus, I might also be able to talk to him about his mother’s death. Aunt Madge would be so relieved if he wasn’t guilty. And how about me?
I would like that, too.

I drove to the house on a Friday morning and parked my Toyota in the driveway next to his Mercedes. This time he let me ring the bell, and opened the door without comment. Things looked pretty much as they did little more than a week ago. I glanced up at him. “How are you holding up?”

“I think the traditional reply is ‘as well as can be expected,’ but I’m still really ticked off.” He was wearing gray sweats and an old pair of running shoes, and didn’t look anything like the successful Texas oil executive.

“I would think sad, too,” I said, as I fished my tape measure out of my purse.

“Yeah,” he led me upstairs, “I am, but the arrest is so frustrating I mostly think about that.”

We didn’t talk as I measured and made notes. Fortunately, he had opened all the curtains in the master bedroom, so it looked nothing as it did the day I found his mother in ultimate repose. The upstairs was in the same immaculate condition as the first floor. Someone had done a good job cleaning up the fingerprint dust, which impressed me given how long it had taken me to clean the ink off my own hands.

One of the bedrooms had been turned into a den of sorts, complete with a large-screen TV and computer, which was housed in a very expensive wall unit that looked like solid maple
. That must have been a bear to get up the steps.

I stopped at the threshold, taking in the green walls, maple crown molding, and rich brown carpet. A man’s room if there ever was one. I glanced at Michael and he was smiling at me. “Yes, she decorated it with me in mind.”

I must have flushed because his smile broadened. Since I could think of no smart comeback, I said only, “It’s lovely,” and got to work.

As we walked downstairs I asked him if he needed help with anything. “Mother’s friend, Mrs. Jasper, keeps calling to see if I want help going through mother’s things. It seems a bit early to do that.” He sighed. “I know she’s just trying to help, and mother really admired how much she did for First Prez.”

“I met her briefly at the house after the funeral.” I hesitated and then told him Aunt Madge’s assessment of her talkativeness, trying to make it sound funny. I failed.

“Yeah, Mother didn’t have an answering machine, but I bought one to screen calls and I don’t answer when it’s her anymore.”

“How about Sgt. Morehouse’s calls?” I realized this was a mistake as soon as I said it.

“That bastard doesn’t have the nerve to call.” He had led me to the kitchen and gestured to some mugs on the counter near a coffee pot. He helped himself and I did the same. “It’s still not clear what they have other than the firm belief that I wanted my mother’s money sooner rather than later.”

“Surely they have to tell you.”

“Eventually. My lawyer says we’ll learn some at the probable cause hearing, where the judge hears information so he can decide if the case will go to trial.” He frowned as he took a drink of coffee. “And if he rules I do go to trial, my attorney and I will learn a lot more during discovery.”

From crime novels, I recalled that this was the process through which the two sides shared a lot of information prior to the trial. “Maybe it won’t even get that far,” I said, trying to be encouraging. “Maybe they’ll find the real killer.”

“I used to sniff out some pretty good real estate deals. For all the good it did me,” I said, glumly. I was starting to get letters from all kinds of creditors I’d never heard of. I simply forwarded them to my lawyer, and was resigned to paying him a lot of money to handle it and having a really lousy credit rating for a decade.

He snorted. “She’s not kind. She wants me to think she is so I don’t fight so hard about the size of her settlement, now that I’ve come into Mom’s money.”