Dead Man's Bones (15 page)

“Oh?” I turned to Jean. “Ruby hasn’t said much about it, except that you’ve made some changes in the script. What have you done?”

Jean gave me a mysterious look. “You’ll see,” was all she said.

Marian bent over and took a package of Parmesan cheese out of the cooler next to the wines. “Of course, we don’t know what Jane is going to say. She’ll probably close us down.” She dropped the cheese into her basket. “And today, she ripped me apart over the damn sign. The big one, that was supposed to go on the front of the theater.”

“Uh-oh,” I said softly.

“Uh-oh in spades.” Marian’s voice rose, her tone hot enough to fry fish. “Turns out that she wanted
‘Merrill G. Obermann’
on the sign, rather than just plain old Merrill Obermann.”

“G,”
Jean put in, “stands for
Gustav.
It distinguishes Merrill G. from his ne’er-do-well cousin, Merrill T.”

“
T
,” Marian said, “stands for
Tobias.
Never mind that both of these old farts have been dead for half a century, or that the sign cost nearly a thousand dollars. It has to be done over again. With a
G
. Which stands for God help us.”

“What a pain,” I said.

“You said it. I—” She glanced at her watch. “Holy smokes, we’ve gotta go, Jean. You’re coming to opening night, aren’t you, China? You’ll see what Jean and Ruby have cooked up then.”

“Of course I’m coming,” I said. “Have you forgotten that Party Thyme is catering the cast party? And since Ruby will have her hands full with the play, I’m helping Janet with the food.”

“Good Lord, yes.” Marian ran her hands through her crimped curls. “Jane’s got me so rattled that I’d forget my head if it wasn’t nailed on.”

Jean’s laugh was short and bitter. “If we can just get through opening night without somebody shooting that wretched old bitch, we’ll be lucky.”

It was the kind of thing people say without meaning, of course, meant to express impatience, exasperation, even anger. One of those trivial remarks that we forget as soon as the words themselves have dropped into silence.

But given my conversation with McQuaid that morning, I didn’t forget them. They were the first words that would come into my mind on Friday night, when I heard the shot.

 
In a blender, combine the basil, spinach, cheese, garlic, and nuts. With the blender running, add the lemon juice and olive oil. Process until smooth. Place in a bowl and stir in mayonnaise. Add horseradish to taste (more if you like a zesty bite, less or none if you don’t), and salt and pepper. Add diced sun-dried tomatoes and stir just to mix. Cover and refrigerate until serving time. Excellent on hot or cold chicken, or on cold salmon or cold sliced beef. Makes about 2
¹
⁄2 cups.

Brian had gone to Jake’s house to eat and do homework and whatever else teenagers do when they’re out of sight of adults, and I had planned a pleasant supper
à deux
on the screened-in back porch. The porch was one of the jobs Hank Dixon had done for us, two summers before. A shady, breezy spot, it’s become our favorite for lazy weekend meals, when the hottest days of summer are over.

I tossed a green salad and mixed up a batch of basil pesto mayonnaise and sliced some Swiss cheese for the chicken, while McQuaid built a pecan-wood fire in the barbeque, grilled the chicken breasts, and toasted the sourdough rolls. I watched him through the window, loving him, worrying a little because he looked tired and he was whistling between his teeth in the way he does when he’s feeling pain and doesn’t want to take the medication that makes him drowsy. We had been enormously, miraculously lucky. A fraction of an inch, and the bullet that only nicked his spinal cord would have killed him; as it was, the doctors hadn’t given him much of a chance to walk again. But they hadn’t counted on McQuaid’s determination. He no longer jogs but he walks easily, except when he’s tired or in pain, and he manages his other physical activities with enthusiasm.

When he brought the chicken in from the grill, I spread a cloth on the low, green-painted table, put out the food, and filled our wineglasses. “I ran into Alana Montoya today,” I said, as we helped ourselves to salad. “She’s finished her preliminary work on Brian’s caveman.” I told McQuaid what she’d said about the bullet hole in the skull and the postmortem fracture.

“I guess I’m not surprised,” he said, layering grilled chicken and Swiss slices on a toasted roll. “Wonder if we’ll ever find out who he was.” He slathered pesto mayo over the top. “Kind of a coincidence, huh? You seeing her last night and today, too.” He paused. “You going to see her again?”

“We’re having lunch next week,” I said, withholding my suspicion that Alana wanted to talk about her drinking. I frowned. Lots of faculty members drink too much. So why was I protecting her? Was I afraid that McQuaid would think less of her if he knew? But why should that matter to me? Enough already, China.

We settled into the porch swing, eating and drinking in companionable silence, enjoying the cool evening breeze that blows in from the cedar-covered hills. Howard Cosell sprawled at our feet, one vigilant eye open for any little treat that might come his way, and in the sycamore tree, a wren celebrated the advent of cooler weather with a spill of song.

McQuaid leaned forward, picked up the zinfandel bottle, and refilled his empty glass. “Oh, by the way,” he said, “I’m flying to New Orleans on Friday morning. I’ll be back around lunchtime on Saturday.”

“Well, drat,” I said. I held out my glass and he refilled it, too. “That means you’ll miss opening night, and the Denim and Diamonds gala. Ruby will be brokenhearted.” And I had been counting on him to help me tote the boxes of food for the party. Janet balks at carrying anything heavier than a tray of sandwiches.

“Yeah,” he said ruefully. “Tell Ruby I’m sorry to miss her big night. But I’ll catch the play later. It’s on for three or four weekends, isn’t it?”

“Three, if it doesn’t fold. Marian and Jean didn’t seem too confident when I saw them today.” I paused. “What’s taking you to New Orleans?”

“The . . . other case I’m working on.”

I eyed him. “The résumé fraud thing? What’s that all about, anyway?” McQuaid usually shares at least the outline of his cases, but he hadn’t told me anything at all about this one, not even the name of the client. The case itself was an oddity, since lying on a résumé doesn’t usually warrant the hiring of an investigator. Unless, of course, the liar happens to be a chief honcho of a major corporation. I had read recently of a software company whose CFO had lied about having an MBA from a prestigious Western university. When a reporter uncovered the truth and the wire services got hold of the story, the company’s stock fell thirty-five percent. If there were a potential downside of that magnitude in this case, it would make sense to hire McQuaid to look into the suspected problem.

McQuaid eased back into the swing with a grimace that told me that his back was bothering him. He answered my question with one of his own. “Aren’t you going to ask me how it went with the Obermann sisters this afternoon?”

“Oh, right,” I said, with interest. “So you saw them today?”

He nodded. “If Jane is the client from hell, she hasn’t shown her true nature—not yet, anyway. The interview went very well.”

“Jane must have been on her best behavior,” I said dryly, thinking of my conversation with Marian and Jean.

“I suppose. We didn’t finish—I didn’t get all the information I needed, and I don’t yet have a signature on the retainer agreement. But Jane certainly seems cooperative enough. And this is a job she wants done. She’s definitely afraid.”

I pushed the cloth aside and put my feet up, turning the table into an ottoman. “So what happened? Let’s have the blow-by-blow. And don’t leave anything out.”

McQuaid obliged. He had gone to the Obermann mansion at two o’clock that afternoon, parking in the circular drive in front of the house and going up the walk to the front door.

“It’s an imposing house,” he said, “or at least it must have been, once upon a time. It needs a lot of fixing up, though—painting, repair, garden work. There’s enough to keep somebody busy full-time for a year or more. It’s an odd place, with those turrets and towers and chimneys and weird dormers.” He frowned. “It has a strange feeling about it, too, if you ask me. I don’t think I’d want to live there.”

“Maybe it’s the widow’s walk,” I offered. “The Obermann mansion is the only house in town that has one. And Cynthia Obermann is the only woman in Pecan Springs history who killed herself by jumping off her own roof.”

“No kidding.” He made a face. “Well, I’m not surprised. Maybe taking care of that enormous place drove her crazy.” His grin was lopsided. “It has a certain authentic spookiness, I’d say. It would make a great set for a vampire movie. You can picture them flying out of those turret windows.”

“Or a haunted house for Halloween,” I said, “featuring Miss Jane as the chief haunter—although I’ll bet you couldn’t persuade the neighborhood kids to go inside. They’d be scared to death of the old lady.”

But McQuaid, not being a scared kid, had gone inside. He had banged the heavy, old-fashioned door knocker, and eventually the door was opened by a grim-faced woman in her fifties, her hair done up in a ragged knot—the housekeeper and sometime-chauffeur, he surmised. He gave his name, she nodded, beckoned him in, and closed and locked the door behind him.

Without a word—“Eerie,” McQuaid described it—she showed him to the book-lined library, which had French doors that opened onto a brick patio, littered with leaves and surrounded by a tangle of unkempt bushes. The room’s windows were tall and elegant, but the green velvet drapes were faded and dusty. The Edwardian furniture—a velvet settee, carved tables, beaded lampshades—would have been at home on the set of
Upstairs, Downstairs
, but most of it was shabby, and the Oriental rug on the floor was worn to the bare threads. The focal point of the room was a fireplace, over which hung a gilt-framed oil portrait of Doctor Obermann.

“Imposing man,” McQuaid said. “Teutonic to the mustache and gold-rimmed glasses.” He grinned. “I wondered what that testy old German would think of his daughters’ inviting a private detective into his library. He’d probably view me as a little lower than dirt.”

There was one more thing in the room that caught McQuaid’s attention, quite naturally: a glass curio case with curved legs that might have held crystal and china, but instead held three pistols, each on its own glass shelf. Because McQuaid collects guns, he sauntered over to take a look. They were vintage guns: a broom-handle Mauser, a Luger, and an M1911 Colt .45 automatic, all antiques, but still quite lethal-looking. He was examining them through the glass when the door opened and the Obermann sisters made their entrance.

“Amazing,” McQuaid said with a chuckle. “Jane was wearing something queenly. She is remarkably aristocratic.”

“An understatement,” I said.

“All statements are understatements, when it comes to that lady,” McQuaid said. “The other one, Florence, looked pretty frail. She didn’t seem well—or perhaps she just didn’t want to talk to me. Jane did all the talking.”

“Apparently, she always does,” I said.

The first order of business was the family history. Of course, it wasn’t relevant to the present situation, Jane told him, but she thought it might be helpful for him to know something about the Obermann background. McQuaid, who had the feeling that family history was a source of pride for her, had let her talk.

I knew the story, or part of it, anyway, from
A Man for All Reasons
, and from the tales I’d heard about the family since I had come to Pecan Springs. Merrill Obermann—Merrill Gustav Obermann—had been born in 1896 and was twenty-three when, a decorated war hero, he returned from combat in France to marry his sweetheart, Cynthia. From his mother’s side of the family, he inherited a couple of thousand acres of East Texas oil land, where his first gusher spouted in 1925. From his father’s side, he had inherited the intelligence and determination to finish his medical degree and the financial shrewdness required to steer the family fortune, battered but mostly intact, through the angry seas of the Depression.