Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow (35 page)

“No snakes—at least, not until next week,” he replied pleasantly. “That’s when they’re having the Snake Festival.”

“Oh, really? I hope you paid your annual dues so you won’t have to miss it.”

Nick cast me an odd look. “Am I wrong, or did you not specifically ask me to stay in there to see if I could find out anything?”

“You’re right. I did. It’s just that when I see you cavorting with tall, gorgeous women who are dressed as if they only had time to put on half their Halloween costume, I tend to get a little edgy.”

“I was hardly cavorting,” Nick insisted. “Besides, they both turned out to be pretty nice.”

I bet, I thought. And they probably didn’t think those pants make your butt look even
close
to big.

“That woman who came up to me as you were leaving—the tall, gorgeous one, as you described her? She works in an assisted-living facility. Anyway, Princess Hellfire—that’s her name—introduced me to Betty Boob, and the three of us just hit it off.”

My eyebrows jumped up so high they nearly popped off my head. “Those are their names?”

“Not their real names,” Nick replied impatiently. “It’s part of the persona they take on when they come to dungeon events.”

My boyfriend suddenly seemed very much at home in this world. I wasn’t sure I liked that, even if it was for such a good cause.

I was about to ask him if he’d remembered he was there on assignment, rather than simply to make new friends, when he volunteered, “I found out something I think you’ll be interested in hearing about.”

“Shoot.”

“According to Betty and the Princess, Cassandra was gloating the last time the group got together.”

“I’m impressed,” I commented dryly. “It sounds as if those two told you quite a bit about her.”

“Cassandra Thorndike inspired a lot of jealousy, at least among some of the females who knew her. It seems she wasn’t above bragging about her good fortune, whether it related to her skyrocketing career in the glamorous wine industry or modeling for kinky magazines or hanging out with some guy named Thor they told me was ‘a real hunk.’ ” Turning to face me, he announced, “Apparently Cassandra was pretty excited about some new venture she was about to undertake.”

“What kind of venture?” I felt a familiar pounding in my chest, my usual reaction to learning something that might get me a step or two closer to figuring out what a murder victim had been up to in the days or weeks before he or she was killed.

“They didn’t say,” Nick replied. “But it must have had something to do with her father, because according to Betty Boob, Cassandra made a sly comment about how she had her daddy wrapped around her little finger. At least, that’s how Betty remembers it.”

“Interesting.” And perfectly true, I thought, at least according to Joan Thorndike, who was certainly in a position to know. But if these leatherettes were to be believed, it sounded as if this exciting new endeavor of Cassandra’s had something to do with her father.

Which meant he was likely to know about the new twist Cassandra’s life was about to take.

Suddenly another thought struck me. “Good work, Nick . . . but I don’t suppose you asked them about Jean-Luc and Preston DeVane.”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” he replied, looking quite pleased with himself. “The two of them are regulars at this Tuesday night dungeon event. They’ve been showing up together for months. They’re pretty tight too.”

“
Very
good work,” I told him.

In fact, I was still trying to digest all the interesting new information I’d learned about Cassandra and her entourage this evening when Nick said, “By the way, Jess, we’re not coming back again next week, are we?”

I just stared at him for a few moments before I collected myself enough to say, “No-o-o.”

“I didn’t think so.” He hesitated. “It’s just that I agreed to be on the refreshments committee. I signed up to bring a cake or cookies or something. Since we’re not coming, maybe I should go back and tell Princess Hellfire—”

“I think they’ll manage fine without us,” I assured him, turning the key in the ignition. “Besides, from what I saw, it looked like the chocolate-pudding committee had things pretty well under control.”

First thing the next morning, after Nick had left for school and I was finishing my coffee, I made a dozen phone calls and, as I hoped, managed to reschedule enough appointments to fit in an
unscheduled
visit to the North Fork late that afternoon.

I was scribbling in my date book, crossing out David and Marty Dauwalder and their cockapoo Wally in Port Townsend and writing them in for the next day as Cat lay contentedly in my lap, when a knock at the door startled me. For some reason, I immediately pictured my visitor as someone dressed in a black leather hood, brandishing a thick chain. So I was relieved when I peeked through the window and saw Betty standing outside.

“Betty!” I cried as I flung open the front door, understanding why Max and Lou hadn’t done anything more threatening than wag their tails and whine a little. I felt both relieved and guilty, the latter because I’d been so busy thinking about Cassandra over the past few days that I’d forgotten all about Betty’s romantic R&R with Winston. “How was your getaway?”

She thrust a white box at me. “Shoofly pie,” she explained. “A Pennsylvania Dutch specialty. I swear, you can’t drive ten feet through Amish Country without running into one of these.”

“Great!” I said, taking it from her and setting it down on the coffee table. “Lately, Nick and I have been developing quite a sweet tooth—hey, get away from that, Lou! That’s people food!”

As Betty settled into the upholstered chair, giving Max the enthusiastic welcome he always insisted upon, something about her smile struck me as forced.

“Was your trip as wonderful as you’d hoped?” I asked, plopping down on the couch.

Her smile faded. “First, there was so much traffic between here and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, you’d have thought they were offering free land in Oklahoma again. Second, our ‘rustic yet charming’ bed-and-breakfast was such a bare-bones operation I thought I’d become Amish myself. Third, if I look at one more quilt, I might begin to shriek hysterically.”

She let out a deep sigh. “To tell you the truth, Jessica, home sweet home has never felt quite this good.”

“What about Winston? Did you two...you know, rekindle the old spark?”

“Turns out he snores just as loudly in Pennsylvania as he does in New York. And that he brings a lot of his other quirks with him on the road too. And those include his brewer’s yeast and his soy powder.”

Shaking her head slowly, she added, “I know I’m not perfect either. In fact, he did mention—in a very
nice
way, of course—that I have a few annoying idiosyncrasies of my own. I guess the bottom line is that Winston and I just have to get used to each other—and to living with another person too. It’s never an easy thing, of course, and when you’ve been living on your own the way each of us has—and for as long as each of us has—it’s even harder. But one good thing did come out of our trip.”

“What’s that?” I asked hopefully. Frankly, I was surprised by how hard I was rooting for them.

“Winston and I had a long heart-to-heart conversation on the Belt Parkway, coming home. And since they closed two of the three lanes, I can assure you that we had plenty of time to talk. He and I agreed that we have really strong feelings for each other, and that no matter how difficult it is, we’re going to keep trying. I guess he’s as much of a romantic as I am, but he believes as strongly as I do that what we have is special—and worth fighting for.”

“Wow,” I breathed. I felt like I was watching the ending of a really romantic movie, the kind that makes my eyes sting.

“How about you and Nick?” she asked, the look in her eyes going from dreamy to bright. “I hope you two made the best of your romantic getaway, even though you didn’t get very far away.”

I couldn’t help glancing around the cottage, suddenly worried that maybe I hadn’t put everything back in order—at least enough so that it looked like my normal level of chaos, instead of the scene of a ransacking. The last thing I wanted was for Betty to worry. Even though the unsettling incident had occurred on her property, I was utterly convinced it had nothing to do with her.

“It was lovely,” I assured her. And as I said the words, I realized that it really had been lovely. Nick and I were lucky enough to have that same special connection that she and Winston had—and, like them, we were lucky enough to recognize how valuable it was. “Thanks for letting us use your place, Betty. It was a great chance to step out of our regular day-to-day life and really appreciate each other.”

“Good!” she cried. “In that case, I say we put on the teakettle and break into the shoofly pie.” In response to my look of astonishment, she added, “I said they were everywhere in Amish Country, but I didn’t say I wasn’t crazy about them!”

The good mood our impromptu tea party created didn’t last long. As I turned off Route 35 and into the Thorndikes’ driveway later that day, a feeling of dread came over me. While I’d been excited by Nick’s discovery that Cassandra was about to embark on some sort of new venture, I found the prospect of talking to the victim’s father about it pretty unsavory.

As I got out of the car, the place seemed unusually quiet. That didn’t mean Ethan wasn’t lurking in some dark corner somewhere, I realized, waiting to pounce on me when I least expected it. I kept an eye out for him as I knocked on the back door. There was no response, from either him or his stepmother.

Next I tried the barn out back, a dilapidated building I’d noticed but hadn’t ventured into before. The sounds of something being slid and dropped, over and over, told me I might have found the man I was looking for.

Sure enough, when I peeked inside, I saw Gordon pulling cardboard cartons of wine off a dolly and loading them into the garage.

“Mr. Thorndike?” I called softly, not wanting to startle him.

He turned around, barely gave me a glance, and went back to what he was doing.

“I don’t want to bother you,” I began, “and I can see you’re busy—”

“I remember you,” he said without looking back at me. “You’re that veterinarian.”

“That’s right.”

I took a deep breath. “Mr. Thorndike, first let me say how terribly sorry I am about your daughter. I can imagine how devastated you must feel.”

“Thank you.” For the first time since I’d walked in, he stopped shoving boxes around and looked me squarely in the face. “Somehow, I have a feeling that’s not what you came here to say.”

“No.” I took a deep breath. “Last night, I spoke with some of Cassandra’s friends.” My voice cracked as I uttered that last word.

Still, I’d gotten her father’s attention. “Go on,” he prompted.

Maybe it was the emotion in my voice, or maybe he also had questions about her “friends,” but he suddenly seemed extremely interested in what I had to say.

I took another deep breath. “One of them said something about Cassandra being excited about a new venture she was about to undertake. And she mentioned that Cassandra’s father had something to do with it.” My heart felt like it had leaped out of my chest and become lodged in my throat as I added, “Do you have any idea what she might have been talking about?”

“Well, sure. That’d be the new winery.”

I blinked. I hadn’t expected this to be easy, yet Cassandra’s father seemed to know exactly what I was talking about. “What new winery?”

“Look, Cassie was one of those kids who took a while to find herself. You know, to figure out what to do with her life.” He shook his head slowly. “That girl tried a lot of different things. Art, acting...even modeling, from what I understand.”

Let’s hope you never really do, I thought.

“But lately she’d developed an interest in the wine business,” he went on. His eyes shone, as if someone had turned on a light. “Of course, I couldn’t have been more pleased that she wanted to follow in her old dad’s footsteps. A couple of years ago, she started learning the business by working in sales. You know, going around to East End restaurants, trying to convince them to serve our wines. She took to it better than I ever expected. Began asking a lot of questions, too, showing a real interest in the process. I was only too happy to teach her everything I know. Only too happy to help her get started, too.”

“Do you mean started in sales?” I asked, confused.

“I mean started with her own winery. She’d certainly learned enough about the sales and marketing end of things to give it a go. True, she had a ways to go in terms of learning how to actually run a vineyard, but I figured I could help her as she went along.”

A soft look had come into his blue-green eyes, as if he was seeing the scenario play out—at least, the way he’d originally envisioned it. “I was looking forward to working side by side with her. I’m getting on in years, so I figured this was a good way to make sure Cassie had a secure future. After all, she was going to inherit all this eventually, anyway. Why not start making it hers
now
?”

I just nodded. Suddenly another thought popped into my mind: the age-old issue of sibling rivalry.

“What about Ethan?” I asked. “Did he ever show an interest in the wine business?”

“Ethan? Nah. He’s not stable enough to take on something that ambitious. Besides, he’s much more of a loner than Cassie ever was.

“Interestingly, it was Joan who was against the idea,” Gordon continued, almost as if he was talking to himself.

“Joan?” I repeated, surprised. “Why? Wasn’t she pleased that Cassandra had found something she was excited about?”

Yet even as I asked the question, I already knew the answer. Joan probably knew Cassandra Thorndike better than anyone else, including her own father. And like so many of the other people who knew the beautiful but flighty young woman, Joan had no illusions about who Cassandra was—and who she wasn’t. Maybe Gordon Thorndike was convinced that his daughter was ready to take on the role of effective businesswoman, but I could imagine Cassandra’s stepmother thinking otherwise.