Authors: First Impressions
'When
Minton returned to Farrington Manor, it was late at night, and there was his
wife, dead on the library floor, the safe standing open and empty. He figured
she'd been murdered by her lover when they discovered that the necklace was
gone. Minton immediately got on a horse, took his two best hunting dogs, and
went after her lover. He found the man the next day, hiding in a cabin in the
swamp. Minton said he held a shotgun on the man and made him back up. What the
man didn't see, but Minton did, was the big snake sunning itself on a rock.
After his wife's lover was dead, Minton went back to Farrington Manor. By this
time, his wife's body had been discovered, and in the confusion, people thought
Minton was just returning from his trip, so the truth of what he'd done wasn't
suspected.
'Minton
never told anyone that he'd sold the jewels because he was afraid that people
would figure out the truth about his wife. He'd rather it was said that she'd
been killed during a robbery than that she'd been planning to run off with her
lover. When the legend of the missing sapphires started, he didn't contradict
it. In fact,
he pretended to
look for the necklace, even offering a reward.
'About
six months after his wife's death, Minton met a plain-faced young woman who was
said to adore him, and they got married and produced four healthy children. It
was only on his deathbed that he told his eldest son the truth. The son told
his eldest son, until it came down to Mrs. Farrington, who was an only child.
As for Minton Farrington, he was glad he'd sold the necklace, because after it
was gone, his luck changed. It seemed that everything he touched turned to
gold, and when he died, the plantation was in the best shape that it had been
in a century.
'And
that's the end of the story,' Eden said, rubbing her arms against the cold of
the cellar. The candles were burning down, and she didn't see any more on the
shelves. It wouldn't be long before they were in darkness.
'Great
story,' Jared said. 'But I don't see any connection to Applegate. Jewels would
be too hard to fence. He'd have to cut them.'
'Pardon
me, but I think you missed the point of the story. The jewels were sold, not
stolen. By now they've been disassembled and sold to movie stars with big lips
and artificial breasts. No one knows they were ever called the Farrington
Sapphires, and certainly no one knows that they once belonged to an unfaithful
French duchess.'
'Hmmm,'
Jared said.
'And
what is that supposed to mean?'
He put
his elbows on his knees and looked at her. 'It means that there are so many
holes in that story that I don't know where to begin. Do you think that man
overheard his wife and the gardener plotting to steal his family's pride and
joy and run away together, and all he did was take the necklace to a
pawnbroker? Do you want me to believe that he didn't want revenge? What was he
planning to do when he got back from selling the necklace? Continue living with
the woman? Give the gardener things to plant? You showed me that Minton was a
man of revenge when you told me that he went after the gardener, held a gun on
him, then watched him back into a deadly poisonous snake. You even said that
'after his wife's lover was dead' this Minton character went back to his house.
What does that mean? That he stood there and watched the man die? If he did,
don't you think he did it for his own enjoyment? And when Minton got back to
his house he let people think that he'd just returned from his trip. Don't you
think that there were men in the stables who knew that he'd jumped on a horse
in the wee hours and gone off with a couple of dogs and a firearm or two? Did
Minton bribe them or shoot them so they wouldn't tell his secret? I think your
story tells the character of this man Minton very well. I think he killed both
his wife and her lover. I think it's probable that the story of the trip to New
York was just to give him an alibi, and I doubt if he went at all.'
Eden
sat there blinking at him. Every word he'd said made sense, but she'd never
looked at the story as he was doing. 'What about the jewels?'
'From
your story, I agree that the first wife, the beautiful one, married the ugly
man for the jewels. But then he probably married her for her beauty,
so they had a bargain. I think what probably sent
ol' Minton into a rage was that his wife broke their agreement. He knew she was
having an affair. He was lord and master of the place, so he'd know what was
going on. I think what sent him over
the edge was that she thought
she could leave him and take the jewels. That was a total breaking of their
agreement. I think he strangled his adulterous wife, then killed her lover in a
clever way, and wisely told the people the jewels had
been stolen. With the jewels gone, a lot of the anger in the family
was taken away, and he'd never again have to risk some woman marrying him for
the sapphires. As for his bad luck, if he had a wife who hated him and was
diddling the gardener, he was probably so stressed out that he couldn't make a
decent decision. He took that accursed necklace out of the public's eye, found
himself a faithful wife, had some kids, and he could think again, so his luck
changed. That he committed two murders probably never bothered him
any more than walking out of a bad land deal.'
'Oh,'
Eden said, blinking. 'Have you ever thought of writing? I think you could come
up with some great plots.'
'I've
seen too much,' he said. 'I tend to think only the worst of people. They — ' He
broke off as he reached for his cell phone, which was vibrating. Opening the
phone, he smiled. 'Bill, where — ' Jared paused. 'Tell
me that again slowly,' he said, looking away from Eden. After a couple of
minutes, Jared said, 'Then who the hell are the men upstairs if they aren't
ours?' As he said that, he glanced at Eden quickly. 'Yeah, she's down here with
me. Yeah, send some men. I think the guys upstairs are gone, but they knew this
house well enough to know where the cellar door is, and they've locked us in.
No, don't worry about it. I can shoot the lock off and get out.' Again, he
looked at Eden briefly. 'Yeah, but go ahead and send them. Plain-clothes. This
town gossips about everything.'
Closing
the telephone, he looked at Eden as though preparing himself for a lecture.
She was
calm. 'Let me get this straight. I want my facts to be very clear. You staged
all this just to get me alone so you could ask me what I know? But then you've
already asked me that and know that I know nothing. But still, you thought
maybe I was lying, so you dragged me out of bed in my nightgown, and put on an
elaborate charade about bad men being in the house. All the while you thought
they were your own men — who
you
had arranged to be here — but now
you've found out that the men up there really are bad guys. And, oh, yes, all
along you've had a concealed weapon that you could have used to get us out of
here.'
Jared
seemed to consider what she'd said. 'You're pretty much right. But I hate to
use firearms around civilians. Too often they panic and get in the way and get
themselves shot.'
'How
considerate of you,' Eden said nicely. 'May I ask what the man on the telephone
said?'
Jared
ducked his head for a moment. 'His son was hit in the head by a golf ball last
night, so he's been in the hospital with his kid, and he forgot to send the men
I requested. His son's doing fine, though.'
'How
nice. So who
are
the men who were tearing up my house?'
'I have
no idea. You want to get out of here? It's getting a bit chilly. Besides, I'm
hungry.'
If there
had been an instrument of destruction nearby, Eden would have used it on Jared
McBride. As it was, all she could do was try to control her anger enough to
keep herself from throwing jars of pickled beets at him. She took a deep,
calming breath. 'Mr. McBride, I would like for you to get me out of here this
minute. I too am cold and hungry, and I have an appointment' — she looked at
her watch — 'in one hour and forty-six and a half minutes. I plan to make that
appointment in spite of all that you're trying to do to stop me.'
'You're
still planning to meet with Granville?' he asked, but she didn't answer him.
Bending,
Jared lifted his trouser leg and pulled a small pistol out of a holster
strapped to his ankle. 'Get in the corner and cover your ears,' he said, and
Eden did what he told her to. In the next minute, Jared shot the lock on the
door in the ceiling, then pushed the door up. Eden shoved past him and into the
pantry. She was so angry that she couldn't look at him.
Once
she was in the kitchen, she blinked in the bright daylight and glanced around
the room. The kitchen looked much worse in the daylight than it had at night.
Someone had dumped out the freshly filled flour bin onto the floor, then walked
in it. Flour was everywhere, including the countertops. It looked as though
someone had climbed onto the counter and walked around. Eden looked up and saw
that someone had cut a three-foot-square hole in the ceiling. So they could see
into that part of the attic? she wondered.
Behind
her she felt rather than saw or heard McBride. 'Your agency is going to pay for
this,' she said through clenched teeth.
'Good
luck on getting that,' Jared said amiably, seeming to be unperturbed by what he
saw. 'Stay here,' he said, then, with his gun drawn, headed toward the dining
room.
Eden
stormed past him, into the main hall, and nearly burst into tears. The big
secretary was on its face, and the top ornamentation had broken off. She stood
there for a few moments, fighting back tears, then she took off running to look
at what had been done to the rest of the house. The living room was the biggest
mess. The furniture had been overturned and the cushions on the couch cut. The
pictures on the walls, painted by a Farrington ancestor who had no talent
whatever, were in a heap by the fireplace. Had they been about to burn them?
Why? To save their delicate sensibilities?
Jared
came up behind her and put his gun away. There were no other people in the
house and he knew it. When he put his hand on her shoulder, she jerked away
from him and turned to go back into the hall. There was a powder room behind
the main stairs. It had once been part of the master bedroom, but the big pecan
tree outside had taken over the space. Rather than cut down the glorious tree,
a Farrington had reduced the size of the bedroom so much that when the house
had been plumbed, the room was made into a half bath. It was a smallish bedroom
but an enormous powder room. In here, too, the ceiling had been cut and there
were footprints on the counter of the sink.
'I'll
get forensics in here,' Jared said from behind her.
She
whirled on him. 'And what will they tell you? That some criminals did this to
my house? That will be news, won't it?'
'I
don't know why you're angry at me,' he said as he followed her out of the room.
'These weren't
my
men.'
'Not
through any intent of yours!'
'That's
true, I did try to ... ' He straightened his shoulders. 'To keep you from
throwing me out, I tried to make you see the seriousness of this situation. I
didn't tell you this, but an agent was murdered here in Arundel just before you
arrived.'
At that
she turned and looked back at him, her hands into fists, her eyes narrow with
anger. 'Now that's news! An FBI agent got killed. Isn't that what happens to
you guys? Isn't the whole idea that you're supposed to fight trouble? So one of
them was down here, in a small town, snooping around, no doubt asking a lot of
questions about people's private business and he — '
'She.'
'Oh,'
Eden said. 'A woman.'
'Go on.
What were you going to say?'
'How did
it happen?'
'Hit-and-run.'
Eden
gave a sigh. 'A hit-and-run could have been an accident. She wasn't necessarily
murdered.' Her anger was returning. 'And as for this today, did any of you
think that those men were after
you?'
He
didn't answer her, and she didn't expect him to. She threw open the door to her
bedroom and saw that it was exactly as she'd left it. Apparently, no one had
been inside. The fact that no one had tried to find anything in her bedroom
made her more sure that whoever had done this today had been after McBride, not
her. With every minute that went by, she was more sure that his spy, this man
Appleby or whatever his name was, had probably wanted her to publish his
tell-all book, and, as McBride had said, maybe he'd not wanted the FBI to find
out about it, so he'd tried to destroy Eden's name. Maybe he was afraid that
the FBI would block the publication of his book. He, like everyone else who
wrote, wanted that greatest of achievements: immortality, a book that lived
forever.
Eden thought
that after her meeting with Brad, she'd call her publishing house and see if
any reader had read a book written by a man who'd been a spy. Or maybe he'd
done what Eden had with the Farrington data and fictionalized his story.
She glanced at the blue boxes stacked in the corner of her bedroom.
Four of the manuscripts were by unknown authors. Eden was to read them and give
a report. If the book was good, it would be given to an editor who had an
in-house office to be read again, and perhaps published. If the book was no
good, it would be sent back to the author with a polite thank-you. For all Eden
knew — because she'd had no time to work — Applegate's book could be in that
stack. Maybe the men who'd vandalized her house were looking for the manuscript
but hadn't found it. But that made no sense, as the boxes were in plain sight.