Done to Death (9 page)

‘I don't think so.' Melanie glanced at David.

‘You just get more interesting,' he said. ‘The viewership for this show − if we do it right − will be women and a whole lot of gay men. This could be a plus. It's a bit cart-before-the-horse, but I think there's marketing gold here. Cover of
The Advocate
. Are the two of you out?' he asked.

Ada caught movement in Bernice Framm's kitchen curtains.
Does that woman ever sleep?
She waved and shrugged. She wondered if her neighborhood nemesis and vocal homophobe, Clayton Spratt, was also up and about. She imagined what he'd make of this band of young and enthusiastic Manhattanites − probably call the cops and say she was having an orgy. She chuckled and turned the key. ‘Yes, we're out.' She led them down the hall. ‘It wasn't our choice. We were outed on a local blog, as though anyone should care about such things.'

As they passed her living room with its dark wood furniture and glass-fronted cabinets filled with late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art glass, her mother Rose − shy of five feet and with light-blue eyes − emerged from what used to be Ada's bedroom. Her fine white hair mussed in bedhead wisps. ‘What's going on? Who are these people?'

Ada filled her mother in on yesterday's activities.

‘I always thought you should be on TV,' Rose said. Her eyes, since recent double cataract and lasik surgery, no longer magnified behind Coke-bottle lenses.

‘Since when?' Ada asked as she headed back to the smallest of the three bedrooms.

‘Your home is lovely,' Melanie said, looking between Rose and Ada. ‘What was Lil talking about with that
Hoarders
crack?'

Rose snickered. ‘And behind door number three …'

‘Mother!' Ada opened the door, needing to give it an extra push since there was a free-standing steel clothes rack blocking it.

Ada barreled in; she rarely let strangers see the extent of her years of collecting. If she were being honest, Lil wasn't entirely off the mark with her
Hoarders
comment. It had been less than a year ago that Lil had discovered that Ada had been paying for a storage unit in Manhattan. ‘Why?' she'd asked. ‘We have so much space.'

‘Holy mother of God.' David whispered.

Ada braced for their responses. She knew her ‘collecting' had crossed a line, and when she'd reluctantly brought Lil to see what was in her ‘Lock and Walk' Storage unit she hadn't known what to expect.

‘Is this heaven?' Melanie asked, her voice reverential as she scanned the rows of garment racks and carefully stacked boxes labeled YSL, Givenchy, Chanel, Dior. The only furniture in the room was a row of steel drawers that filled an entire wall. ‘OMG!' Melanie exclaimed. ‘Tell me that's not Dior.' Her gaze glued to a black-and-white pencil dress.

‘Lil and my mother don't get my love of clothes.' Ada stood in the middle of her fashion hoard, enjoying the smells and letting her fingers play over the silks and satins. ‘I spent over thirty years in the garment industry. Yes, it was work, but I've always loved fashion. That's what made Strauss's a success. I wanted the people wearing our clothes to look and feel good. So, yes, I got some custom-made samples along the way. Harry and I spent big money, and the designers wanted me in their clothes. It was win win.'

‘This is so not hoarding. Will you adopt me?' Melanie asked.

‘My granddaughter Mona gets it all, and trust me, she'll be stopping by with a pickup truck the day I go. At least she has the height for fashion. With me, it was always finding things that would work on a dwarf.'

‘You're not that short,' Melanie said. ‘And the beautiful thing about TV is that height is not an issue. Weight, on the other hand, can be. And on your test you looked perfect. Maybe we should pick more than one outfit. I was hoping to start at the cemetery.'

‘Something black and cocktail length?' Ada suggested. She pulled out a full-skirted black dress from the fifties, with lace across the bust and three-quarter length sleeves.

‘Perfect … a little Morticia Addams, but not too much, and you said you had a green Chanel.'

Ada chuckled. She grabbed Melanie's hand and led her back toward the walk-in closet.

She turned on the light. Melanie was stunned into silence.

Ada turned. ‘Which green do you like the best?'

Armed with three outfit changes, Ada, Melanie, David, Gretchen and James piled into the tall black RV they'd dubbed the Scooby van. The interior included a dressing and make-up area, with a bathroom in the back and a central lounge area with comfortable couches. The film crew followed in a white van with the LPP logo on the door.

Lil had begged off, needing to work on her column and also offering to help Melanie and company get their ads placed ASAP into both the
Brattlebury Register
and the
Grenville Sentinel
. Her parting words to Ada: ‘You are going to be amazing.'

Their first stop was the cemetery. For downtown Grenville this was big news. Cars stopped and morning joggers and walkers drifted toward the unusual activities.

‘We have to move fast,' Melanie said as the crew set up. ‘I didn't have time to pull permits.'

‘Do you need to?' Ada asked, as Gretchen applied the finishing touches to her make-up and whipped off the apron. ‘This is essentially public land.'

‘Yes and no, and in my experience once you start to ask for permission people say no, or at the very least want some money. We'll come back later and make nice. Right now, let's just get something filmed.'

Initially, Melanie had Ada read from a teleprompter.

Ada did as instructed. ‘Melanie, I know this is your business, and I don't want to insult anyone, but I sound forced. Can I maybe do what we did yesterday?'

‘Sorry. I know, it's total crap. We wrote this intro at like three a.m. You want to go off script?'

‘I didn't think reality TV used scripts.'

The entire crew broke out laughing.

‘What?' Ada asked.

‘It's all scripted,' Melanie said. ‘Just don't tell the Writers Guild. All reality shows have some kind of script. Kev,' she called to the man running the teleprompter. ‘You can take a break.'

‘Do you know what to say?' Melanie asked.

Ada smiled. ‘You want me to introduce the show and explain the rules, correct?'

‘That's about it.'

‘And if I screw up you can edit, correct?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘Great, so this is my spot,' she said, standing in front of a row of eighteenth-century graves, the center one with a weathered carving of a winged angel.

‘When I say “action”,' Melanie instructed, ‘just start talking.'

Ada nodded. She looked past the film crew at the gathering crowd, most of them hanging back behind the cemetery's outer stone wall. Some ventured closer, one woman striking up a conversation with James the hairdresser.

‘Quiet please,' Melanie shouted.

Ada took a couple breaths; she felt a surge of excitement. A moment's doubt;
what if I freeze up?

‘And … action.'

Ada smiled, looked into the camera and, just as she'd done for decades when running Strauss's, welcomed her audience as she'd welcomed shoppers to her stores. ‘Thank you so much for joining us and welcome to
Final Reckoning
. I'm Ada Strauss and we're in lovely Grenville, Connecticut, the antiques capital of New England …' she lowered her voice to a whisper ‘… if not the world. Today we're going on a trip that, sadly, everyone takes. The final trip.'

Transfixed by the unusual activity, the crowd surged closer to hear Ada. She spotted familiar faces, and found it actually became easier if she spoke directly to them. ‘We're here today to see what happens at the end of life, when all of our worldly possessions pass on to the people we love, or get sold at estate sales and auctions.

‘The rules for
Final Reckoning
are easy. Three antique dealers will have the opportunity to appraise and bid on an estate. This can be an outright sale, or the heirs may choose to have the winning dealer earn a percentage at a three-day estate sale. Along the way we'll explore the history of fabulous − and sometimes not so fabulous − antiques, works of art and collectibles. Our goals are for the heirs and loved ones of the recently deceased to get a bit of closure … and as much cash as possible.'

Ada caught smiles and looks of concern. She nodded. ‘Ghoulish? Perhaps. But something we all have to face. So, I'm Ada Strauss and welcome to …
Final Reckoning
.'

‘And cut!' Melanie shouted. She stared at Ada, poised and elegant in vintage black, in the scenic cemetery, where clumps of purple crocus and yellow daffodils sprouted among the graves. She looked at the camera and sound guys. ‘We got all that?' she asked.

‘You bet. Want to get a second?'

‘No, we're good. Really good.'

‘Y
ou're not sending me away, Richard. You need me.' Rachel, with red-rimmed eyes, glared up at her brother from her bathroom floor; her arms and legs were smeared with blood. ‘I'll be fine, and what do you care if I'm not? It's just more pie for you.'

‘You're not OK.' He fought to keep the anger from his voice. ‘Look at you.' He bit back all the things that would turn a bad situation into a nuclear meltdown. People who are OK don't curl up in their bathroom and slice at their arms and thighs with a box cutter.

‘You don't give a shit! You're like Mom two point zero. Second verse as shitty as the first.'

‘I do care, Rachel,' and that was the truth, one of several.

‘You should.' She sniffed and batted at her eyes.

He saw the fresh cuts on her upper arm, not deep, none more than an inch, none requiring stitches and a trip to the emergency room. It would be a call to her psychiatrist, Dr Ebert. ‘Rachel, please give me the box cutter.'

She thrust it toward him, displaying the fresh cuts and a meshwork of scars dating back to puberty. ‘I'm sorry I'm such a fuck up. I'm sorry Mommy couldn't pop out two perfect children. God,' she hiccoughed, and put her fist in her mouth. Like a baby with a pacifier, she sucked her knuckles. ‘She's dead. Oh God.' Tears popped through thickly smeared mascara.

‘Yes,' Richard said. He clicked the box cutter closed and shoved it into a pocket. He sank to the cool tile floor and wrapped an arm around her. He never knew what Rachel needed. And unlike his mother, who couldn't tolerate her volatile mood swings, he wanted to help. Growing up had been a war zone, where he was the peacekeeper and his mother and sister the combatants. The fights would start from nothing and go from zero to nightmare in seconds. It was like neither one could stop herself. His sister's rages and crushing depression set off by the trip wires of Mom's coldness, her disdain, her cruelty. He couldn't argue when Rachel accused Mom of not loving her; it was probably true. Certainly, Lenore never showed Rachel the affection she showered on him. He hugged Rachel tight, feeling the fragility of her frame, her shoulders just bones.
She's too thin again.
In the laundry list of psychiatric disorders Rachel had been diagnosed with, an eating disorder with both bulimic and anorectic symptoms was included. ‘We'll get through this,' he said, his thoughts pulled by calls from lawyers, the detectives who wanted to interview both him and Rachel, anxious producers, the CFO and COO wanting to bring in consultants to handle the post-Lenore restructuring. But as he thought about it, with Mom dead, Rachel and he were it. And she was pregnant, and threatening to keep the baby. Which, considering who the father was, was a decidedly bad idea.

Rachel gazed at the base of the toilet. ‘I wanted her dead,' she said.

‘I know, and you shouldn't say that around anyone but me. Not even Ebert; I'm sure his records will get subpoenaed.'

‘They're going to think we did it, but we have an alibi,' she said. ‘I was in the hospital and you were with me when Mom was shot.'

‘We could have hired someone,' he said, having already wandered down this road.

‘So I would have faked my tantrum at Murielle's, gotten hauled to the hospital … or to jail if those bastard cops had had their way. Really? Seems far-fetched.'

‘Why not?' he said. ‘Either one of us has more than enough money to hire someone, although how does someone find a hit man?'

‘Craigslist?' she offered.

‘Or Angie's … it's kind of like a workman. Wouldn't you want references?'

‘Like stars,' she pressed in against Richard. ‘“John was an excellent assassin and I couldn't have been happier with the clean-up. A five star professional.”'

Richard looked down, his chin tickled by the soft strands of her hair. Something relaxed as he caught the hint of her smile. His sister was beautiful − or could be − with Lenore's green eyes and ash blond hair that was currently platinum.

‘I didn't do it,' he said, knowing she'd believe him.

‘I know that. I didn't either, although,' she turned her face up to his, ‘I'd thought about it. I never would have, though. Or not like this – I mean this was planned. Someone who knew Mom, her schedule … it's probably someone we know. Someone who worked for her.'

He held his tongue, as years of skirmishes between Mom and Rachel played in his head. Some had gotten physical. Once, Rachel had pushed Mom down the stairs, leaving her with massive bruises. She'd retaliated by sending Rachel − then fourteen − to a residential psychiatric hospital. There'd been plenty of slaps, but it was the things they'd said to one another, hateful and unforgivable. Rachel twisted in his arms. He looked into her eyes, so like their mother's. He felt her tremble.

‘You've got to stop doing this stuff,' he said. ‘I'm not Mom. I don't want to hurt you.'