“The Around Again car lot. Are you telling me we’re offering a
used car
as the grand prize?” Ed Hays advertised with us, so I supposed Cyrus worked out a deal. A pretty chintzy deal, I thought.
“ ‘Previously owned,’ as Ed likes to call them.” Vera Mae grinned. “A lot of people have called in asking if Chantel could do a reading on the courthouse grounds. Cyrus did talk about doing a live remote from out there. Chantel would work her mojo and try to pick up some clues about the time capsule.” She stopped fiddling with the pencil and jammed it back into the jar. “Who knows.” She let out a little sigh. “I hate to say it, but it might get good ratings, a show like that. Anytime you talk to the dead, people are interested.”
“Ridiculous.” I was appalled. “I hope she’s not planning on doing that on my show. My credibility will go down the drain. Remember Barney?”
“I remember, sugar.” Vera Mae bit her lip as if she was holding back a belly laugh. “You know, that ghost dog sure brought in the listeners.”
I was annoyed at the thought that Chantel might use her hocus-pocus on the time capsule festivities. It trivialized the importance of the occasion, made it seem like something out of a carnival. Her séances were one thing, but now she was nosing onto my turf, and my hackles were rising.
“I’m disappointed in Cyrus,” I said bleakly. “I was told that I’d have creative control over my show when I signed the contract.”
“Creative control? He told you that?” She paused for a moment. “Well, I’m sure he meant it, but here’s the thing you have to understand about Cyrus. He’s all about the ratings. We’ve said this before.” She shrugged and stuck out her hands, palms up. “So if a lot more listeners call in, who knows what he’ll decide. All you and I can do is keep on truckin’, though.”
“I guess,” I said dispiritedly. I gave in and grabbed a Twizzler. I might as well go back to my sleuthing since I wasn’t going to get anywhere fighting my rival. “There’s something else I want to ask you about Chantel. Irina said that you may have remembered her from someplace. Or that she reminds you of someone. Could you tell me about that?”
“Yeah, it’s true, and it’s the oddest thing.” Vera Mae leaned forward and cupped her hand under her chin. “It’s been bug-gin’ me ever since that first day she came into the studio. I feel real sure I’ve seen her someplace before, but I can’t think where.” She adjusted a bobby pin in her towering beehive. “I know it will come to me eventually, but right now, I’m drawing a blank. I’ll let you know the second I think of it.”
“Nick’s found someone local who thinks Chantel might have gone to high school here.”
“Really? I’ll track that down, sugar. Don’t you worry.” She grabbed a handful of M&M’S. “Anything else?” She looked at the clock, and I knew she was thinking that it was time to get ready for today’s show. But there was one more thing I needed to know. I was still puzzled over the strange conversation I’d had with Shalimar. Vera Mae knew the down-and-dirty on everyone in Cypress Grove, and I wondered whether she could fill me in.
“Tell me what you know about Bobby Hennessey,” I said, following up on a hunch.
“Oh, Bobby’s a good old boy. His family’s lived here for generations. He’s like Mr. Cypress Grove, hon. Big town booster, belongs to all the right clubs, and of course he advertises with us.” She wrinkled her brow in thought. “And he plays golf with Cyrus.”
“Interesting.” But not very helpful. There had to be more to the story. What was I missing?
Vera Mae gave me a shrewd look. “I’d say you were hot on the trail of someone,” she said. “Why did Bobby catch your interest?”
“Not just Bobby.” I told Vera Mae about meeting Shalimar at the historical society and how odd it was that Shalimar acted like we were best buds. I barely knew the woman, and I was curious about her.
“Don’t know a thing about her. Just that she flies up to New York three or four times a year to buy her clothes and sometimes she even goes to those fashion shows in Paris. She lives in Magnolia Hall, which is practically a mansion. Some people say it’s Cypress Grove’s version of the Biltmore House.”
“Really? She invited me to dinner there tomorrow night.”
Vera Mae slapped her thigh. “Then you are in for a treat, girl. Not that Bobby and Shalimar are that interesting to talk to, but I bet the food will be terrific. She has a personal chef, someone who went to cooking school in Paris. She serves lots of fancy stuff.” Vera Mae made a face. “She sent over some appetizers once for a library event. It was raw tuna. Tuna tartare she called it. You should probably warn them you’re a vegetarian, or you may find yourself staring at a standing rib of beef.”
“That’s okay. I’ll take my chances,” I said. I never expect people to make special meals for me because I’m a vegetarian. If they serve meat, chicken, or fish, I just ignore the en-tree and fill up on salads, vegetables, and bread. “She invited Nick Harrison, too.”
“Oh, Lordy, Nick Harrison eating dinner at Magnolia Hall? That boy will be in hog heaven. His stomach is a bottomless pit.” Vera grinned. “What do you want to bet he asks for a doggie bag to take home?”
“You’d win that bet hands down, Vera Mae.” I paused, wishing Shalimar had included Vera Mae in the invitation. “What are you up to tonight?”
“Oh, don’t you worry about me, sugar,” she said, reading my mind. She pointed to a cardboard box tucked under her desk. “Miss Whittier dropped these papers off for me to read.”
“Lucille Whittier? I met her at Althea’s funeral,” I said. “What do you suppose is in there?”
“Just some papers that Althea gave her a few weeks ago. She didn’t want to return them to Candace because everything’s up in the air right now.”
“Anything valuable in there?”
Vera Mae shook her head. “I don’t think so. Miss Whittier thought there might be some good material in here about the time capsule. You know, stuff I can use for the promos.”
“Sounds good.” I headed for the door. “Have fun tonight.”
“Oh, I will, honey,” Vera Mae promised, grabbing a pencil from behind her ear. “Just me and my Lean Cuisine.”
Chapter 21
Dinner at Magnolia Hall was everything Vera Mae had predicted.
I gave a little gasp when we rounded a curve and I first spotted the antebellum mansion perched high on a hill. We made our way up a long winding road framed by live oak trees, and a pair of oversized black wrought-iron gates swung open magically for us, as if on cue. There was something almost surreal and stagey about the place, like it was part of a Hollywood set.
Tara meets Universal Studios. I could almost hear theme music playing in the background, a soulful melody with strings swelling to a climax as we pulled into the circular brick driveway.
“Wow, this is a showplace,” I said to Nick. The exterior of the house looked like it was in perfect condition, even though I knew it dated from the nineteenth century. White pillars, dark old brick, and a curved flagstone walkway snaking up to the imposing mansion. The setting sun swiped golden light across acres of manicured lawn and flowering shrubs.
“Look at the lawn,” Nick murmured. “It’s so green, I bet they spray paint it to get it to look that good. That color can’t be natural. It has a sort of bluish tinge to it. It reminds me of that celery and kale juice you drink for breakfast.”
“I think it’s real. They probably have underground sprinklers. And I bet they don’t worry about conserving water.”
The only nod to our century was a cobalt blue kidney-shaped pool off to the left and a clay tennis court on the right. I’d heard that Bobby kept Arabian horses on the property, but the stables must have been tucked far away from the house, out of sight.
Everything about the place screamed old money, and I remembered Vera Mae telling me that Bobby Hennessey had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’d made his fortune the old-fashioned way; he’d inherited it.
“Did you know it was going to be like this?” I asked Nick as he parked in the circular drive. I tried not to sound awestruck, but I was. The house was even more impressive up close, and the air was tinged with the scent of magnolia blossoms and lilac bushes.
“I checked out some pictures from the society pages at the
Gazette
,” Nick said. “Shalimar throws charity events here a few times a year, and all of us scramble for an invitation. Her New Year’s Eve party is always a hot ticket. I’ve never managed to snag one. She invites reporters from the
Palm Beach Post
and the
Miami Herald
. Nobody passes on an invitation to Magnolia Hall.”
“Maybe you’ll be on the guest list once she sees how charming you are,” I teased him.
“I hope so.” He turned off the ignition and tucked his sunglasses in his pocket. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day.” He gave a happy sigh. “I’ve been pacing myself for the last twenty-four hours.”
“Pacing yourself?”
Nick grinned and patted his stomach. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday. Nothing but water and Altoids.”
“Nick!” I had to laugh; he was incorrigible.
“I’m hoping for a nice filet mignon and maybe some lobster tails. You know, surf and turf.” He stopped and glanced over at me. “Oops, sorry. I forgot you were a vegetarian.”
“You can have my portion,” I promised. “Unless I decide to take it home for Pugsley.”
“Welcome to Magnolia Hall!” Shalimar was wearing a slinky white dress that fit her like a condom. She ushered us into the foyer, which had a mile-high ceiling and black-and-white tile floor. It was a decorator’s dream.
The walls were covered with paper the color of lemon meringue pie, and Shalimar caught me checking it out. It looked like strips of pale yellow grosgrain ribbon, but up close, I could see that it wasn’t ribbon at all. Someone had applied shades of luminescent yellow paint directly onto parchment to get that luminescent quality, an interesting trompe l’oeil effect that had probably cost a small fortune.
“This is gorgeous.” Shalimar beamed while I stopped to admire it. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The wallpaper seems to pick up light from the chandelier.” There was a ginormous chandelier hanging smack-dab in the center of the foyer. Tiny pinpoints of light slanted in the foyer, bounced off the hundreds of teardrop crystals dangling from the chandelier, and splashed onto the lemon wallpaper.
“Yes, that was the whole idea. We couldn’t find anything from the period that we liked, so I sent a piece of vintage fabric to an artist in Paris and had him design something just for me. The paper is hand blocked, and then the ribbon pattern is painted on with little feathery strokes. It took ages to do, but I think it’s worth it.”
“I’m surprised you could find someone to willing do that sort of detail work nowadays. It sounds pretty labor-intensive.”
Shalimar led us into a library where she’d set out trays of tiny hors d’oeuvres. There were miniature quiches, crab cakes, and cheese straws, along with frosted grapes. I wondered whether Nick would wolf them down or whether he’d save himself for the main course.
There was an awkward silence for a moment as Shalimar waved us to a brown leather sofa with brass studs. She gave a nervous laugh, and then she decided to keep on talking about wallpaper. Always a safe topic. “Yes, well,” she said vaguely. “It’s painstaking work, but I found a group of nuns who were willing to paint the pattern directly onto the parchment paper for me. They live in a cloistered convent near Aix-en-Provence. Most of them are quite elderly, but they do excellent work. Bobby said I was very extravagant because some sections of wallpaper are already fading from the sunlight. I guess I should have them replaced. Sunlight is murder on colors, you know. It fades paint and it fades wallpaper. I guess I should have thought of that.”
“I think it’s beautiful.” I tried not to think about a whole order of little old ladies going blind because of Shalimar. “The nuns did a wonderful job.”
“They’re the same nuns who made the lace for my wedding dress.”
I did the bobble-head nod again, at a loss for words. Custom ordering handmade lace for a wedding dress was so out of my experience, I couldn’t even imagine it. If I ever get married, I plan on buying a knockoff Vera Wang.
Something about the fading wallpaper nudged my brain, and I couldn’t quite grab on to the thought. Fading wallpaper. Sunlight ruining colors. Sunlight fading paint. Why would that be significant? I tucked the question away, making a mental note to think about it later.
I was still baffled by the dinner invitation and wondered when Shalimar would show her hand. I took a peek around the library: lots of burnished mahogany, a fireplace filled with lush ferns, and an Oriental rug that was faded to just the right shade of merlot; half a dozen antique guns displayed on a sideboard. I remembered reading that Bobby Hennessey had one of the finest collections of pistols in the South.
A few glamour shots of Shalimar dotted the mantelpiece, along with a wedding picture in a silver frame. Her eyes jumped out of every photo. They were a dazzling, electric shade of green. Colored contacts? I recognized a recent one. She was draped over Bobby at a black-tie charity event just last week in Boca. She looked like a Victoria’s Secret model with her figure-hugging dress and those penetrating emerald eyes.
Plus wall-to-wall books, but I suspected no one read them. They looked fake, somehow, all hardbacks, perfectly aligned, arranged by color and size. I wondered whether she’d bought them by the yard at an estate sale, or maybe they weren’t real books at all. Maybe someone had just painted a picture of book spines and fastened it to the front of the bookcase. Another trompe l’oeil effect?
Nick was heaping hors d’oeuvres onto a delicate little plate just as Bobby Hennessey walked in from the patio. He was wearing tennis whites, and his beefy face was flushed as if he’d spent the day in the Florida sunshine.
“So glad you could make it,” he said, giving a big, toothy smile. He shook hands with us; then he grabbed a bottle of Scotch from the sideboard and poured himself a hefty tumbler. He took a long swallow and glanced around the library. He looked like he wanted to smack his lips together appreciatively but resisted the impulse.