StoneDust (14 page)

“Doing great!—Here, we all chipped in.” He thrust a magnum of Moët in my hands. “Real nice of your aunt to invite us.”

“Come on in and tell her yourself. She'll love your champagne.” In fact, she did not approve of extravagant hostess presents. “Hi, Sherry.”

Sherry pranced up the steps, proud as a cat. It seemed she always put me in mind of animals—tonight a cat; an egret at an auction; a gazelle in the Grand Union. These images had less to do with my own predilections than Sherry's unabashed delight in herself. It was just possible that she flirted out of kindness, confident she was doing men a favor. Maybe that was why Bill never seemed jealous.

“Ben.” She gave me the secret picnic smile.

I kissed her pretty cheek, took her hand, and said, “You look lovely.”

“I cut my hair.”

“Very appealing.” I was a long-hair man myself, but she had a shapely head.

“Bill says I look like a boy.”

“No boy I ever saw.”

“Hear that, Bill? Ben doesn't think I look like a boy.”

“I didn't mean
all
of you. Just your head.”

“Come on in and meet Aunt Connie.”

Bill lumbered after us, grinning happily, and emitted a low whistle when he caught sight of the living room. Connie's decorating technique was, simply put, to arrange artfully loot brought home by generations of sea captains.

She was on her feet, in the midst of the Bowlands and Barretts. (She had taught me when I was thirteen that the only reasons to ever sit during cocktails were either the insistence of your hostess or a grave need for medical attention.) I made introductions and drinks: white wine for the ladies, rye and ginger for Duane, and a beer for Bill; and topped up our sherries.

I jump-started conversations, refilled glasses, lit candles as the night came down, and passed the skimpy hors d'oeuvres. Connie didn't hold with the modern concept of lavish hors d'oeuvres. Green olives stuffed with pimento, peanuts, and smears of anchovy paste on cucumber had sufficed for President Coolidge and they would suffice tonight.

It appeared she was right. The room came alive with talk and laughter. Our guests grew expansive, shedding the tensions of the work week, which began to seem long, long ago. Connie sparkled: the color rose in her cheeks; her white hair glowed like a tradewind cloud.

Phyllis—who had served dinner for Connie since before I was born—caught my eye from the dining-room door. I nodded to Connie. She wound up an anecdote about an irascible old farmer who had sold her his pastures, and asked Ted if he would take her in to the dining room.

Arm in arm they marched off, and arm in arm the rest of us trailed. Sherry Carter said, “Ben, this is so neat. She's terrific.”

“She's having a great time.”

“Is she really
ninety
?”

“We tend not to home in on exact numbers, but my dad told me she ran away from boarding school to nurse the boys in World War One.”

“Wow.” She squeezed me tight. “Hey, this is fun. Thanks for asking us.—Oh, God. Look at the table.”

Connie's dining room was ablaze in candlelight from a chandelier, wall sconces and a forest of candlesticks. We'd set placemats instead of a tablecloth for a summer night, and the polished cherry wood reflected the flames like General Washington's campfires.

Serious discussion had gone into the placecards. Connie sat at the head near the kitchen door, of course; I took the opposite end. She had demanded Ted Barrett on her right, insisting, “The least you can do is allow me a handsome man.” In that spirit, I had opted for Michelle and Sherry on my right and left. She took Rick Bowland on her left, because he was new to her acquaintance. That put Susan beside Rick, then Bill. Across from them, Georgia sat beside Ted, with Duane between her and Sherry.

Phyllis served cold leek soup and then a salad the rabbits had overlooked in my garden. I helped clear, and poured red wine while she brought in the main course.

There was a standard dinner party menu in town, which I'd always called Newbury Stew, although the actual name and recipe varied socially and generationally. The older, well-fixed crowd served up a standard—very standard—
boeuf bourguignon
at its parties, where talk was always more important than the food. The graying and fraying yuppie generation cooked their Newbury stew with veal and oranges and called it marengo. While if you were invited for Newbury Stew at the Chevalleys', you'd encounter possum, woodchuck and anything else that couldn't get off the road fast enough. Connie's Newbury Stew was of the first variety and tonight's had turned out characteristically dry.

It didn't matter. Watching our guests' faces—the women savoring the beautiful room, basking in the glow of old silver and ancient china, the men loosening up on good wine and full plates—it struck me that this gathering of suspects had turned into the best party of the summer.

***

The long clock in the front hall struck ten.

“Well, my dears. It's time for an old woman to go to bed.”

Our guests rose hastily.

“Please don't rush off. There's port and brandy in the library, after you sort out your designated drivers. Ben, I had Mrs. Mealy lay a fire; you'll light it if the ladies are cold. Good night, everyone. I'm delighted you could come.”

During the chorus of thank yous, Duane and Michelle exchanged a puzzled look that I interpreted to read, What about the land?

“We'll talk in the library,” I whispered to Michelle.

She gave Duane a reassuring nod. Connie concluded a grand retreat with an ascent up her curving stair. I started herding my mob toward the library when halfway to the landing Connie turned to say, “Susan? The Dufy I was telling you about? Come up for a quick look.”

Susan glided up the steps like a woman born to Federal mansions and boudoirs hung with renegade Impressionists. Ted followed her with his eyes. He saw me notice and said, “I'm the luckiest son of a bitch in town.”

I agreed to that. Then, worrying vaguely what Connie was up to, I guided the others into the library. “Oh, I love this,” said Georgia. “Is it okay to light the fire, Ben?”

I opened the flue and touched a long wooden match to the newspaper Mrs. Mealy had crumpled under the kindling. The old chimney usually smoked, but tonight it was on its best behavior and the flames enveloped the logs with the thinnest whiff of sweet black birch.

My guests had dispersed into twosomes, peering at the calf-bound volumes, inspecting Connie's ornate Chippendale secretary, delighting over the brass fittings on her father's old captain's desk.

“So what was this about brandy?” boomed Bill Carter.

“Who's driving?”

“We'll ride with Duane. Ted and Susan walked, right Ted?”

“It's a short crawl,” said Ted.

“We'll call our babysitter's boyfriend,” said Rick.

“Duane?”

“I'm driving,” Michelle answered for him. “I'll just have some more coffee, if you've got some.”

I poured for her from a silver pot on a warmer and pressed brandy on Bill and Sherry and Duane. Georgia's request for “something with a kick” elicited a worried glance from Rick.

“I've got the makings of a mean Tombstone, if Duane'll mix it for you.” Duane gave me a doubtful look and shared another with Michelle. Georgia opted for Bailey's Irish Cream. Ted asked for port and thought Susan would have some too. She came in a moment later and joined me at the desk where Connie had arranged the bar on a tray.

“Did the Dufy pass muster?”

“She just needed help with a zipper. I really like her.”

“She seemed to like you too.”

“She invited me over for tea. It's so funny. She's older than my grandmother, but it's like we could be friends.”

“Port?”

“Thank you.” She touched my arm. “Ben?” she said quietly. “Ted told me what happened out at Gill Farm.”

“No problem. We worked it out.”

“He came home shaking. He was so afraid of what he almost did.”

“It's not a problem. It's over.”

“Jesus,” Bill cried from across the room. “What a life! You ever think what it's going to be like when you live here, Ben?”

“Billy!” said Sherry.

“Ben knows what I mean. She's a great old lady, but she can't live forever. Ben's her only relative, right?”

“I'm afraid I'll have to buy my ticket like everyone else.”

“Huh?”

“She's giving it to the town. It's going to be a museum.”

Rick Bowland wanted to know if the painting in the dining room was a Whistler. I told him it was.

“What's a Whistler?” asked Duane. “Hey, Michelle, can I take this goddamned tie off?”

“Go ahead.”

“The Whistler is a portrait of Connie's Aunt Martha.”

“What about the landscapes in the living room?”

“The one with the buck is Landseer, an English painter. The really neat Hudson River job is by Church.”

“Tell me the birch trees in the foyer is Levinson.”

“More likely school of.”

“What kind of security does she have?”

“If you touch the frame, electric shocks are delivered direct to Trooper Moody's mattress and car seat.”

Bill Carter laughed. “A museum? Why not? Share it, right?”

“I'd keep it,” said Michelle. “Wouldn't you, Sherry?”

“I'd open it for the house tour Christmas week and maybe for Newbury Days, if we ever get that off the ground.”

“Me too,” said Susan. “If Ted didn't mind.”

“Long as they wipe their feet.”

I eased over to the mantelpiece, propped an elbow, squire- like. Now that I had them, I had to figure out what to do with them. “Okay, gang. Let's get down to it.”

That sounded a little clumsy to my ear, but they didn't notice. They thought I was talking about land.

“Yeah,” said Duane. “What's she selling?”

“I want to guess,” said Michelle. “It's that two hundred acres on Morris Mountain, isn't it? The Fulton place?”

Duane said, “If she'd let go that stretch on Church Hill Road, we could throw up a six-screen multiplex. Have to widen Main Street for the traffic. Zoning'll go nuts, but hey—Ben, you get Ted and Rick to go along on a little variance and you'll have commissions up the wazoo.”

Half in the bag on merlot and decent brandy, Duane was probably speaking louder than he meant to. Everyone turned to me for my reaction.

To my surprise, I heard myself talking about land too—talking in the stern tones of my ancestors.

“Neither Connie Abbott nor I would desecrate Main Street.”

“Just a few trees.”

“No way.”

“Then what the hell are we talking about here?” Duane asked. “Wha'd you get us to this dinner for?”

I was half a mind to ask him what he was complaining about. He had scoffed down double portions of high-class Newbury stew, and exerted a near-tidal force on Connie's wine cellar; but Michelle, too, looked suspicious, and Susan and Sherry seemed disappointed. Ted's face was a solemn mask. Bill looked at Rick and shrugged his big shoulders.

I said quickly, “I didn't mean to get your hopes too high.”

“Is she selling land or not?” Michelle demanded.

Good question. I pretended to give it my full attention and a funny thing happened. Suddenly I was acting the part of a real estate agent and spewing out fiction with a ring of truth: “Too bad Reg isn't here. We were batting around an idea about Connie forming a land trust.”

“A
land trust
?” echoed Bill Carter. Not a phrase to make your average builder happy, conjuring visions of acreage off limits to backhoes.

Duane growled, “Reg never said ‘land trust' to me.”

“It didn't have to do with you. It had to do with Connie. This is Connie's deal. She's concerned with the future—not today, but tomorrow. We're talking long term here.”

Another phrase far from the hearts of Bill and Duane.

“What kind of long term?”

Winging it—within the context of serious problems Newbury would face in a future without Connie Abbott—I said, “She owns a lot of land, much of it undeveloped. Her resources are not bottomless. Nor is her estate totally immune from death taxes. A trust requires funds to preserve it. If you guys could offer some sort of package, where you'd get a small part of her holdings in return for helping to protect the vast majority, you might find her amenable.”

“Really?” asked Michelle.

“She'd particularly like to see some of the old farms kept going.”

“Gee, I don't know,” said Bill.

“Listen—you guys are the future. Newbury will pass out of her hands. We live here. We make our livings here. We've got a chance to preserve it. At least think about it.”

“We'll think about it,” said Michelle.

Duane said, “I can't believe Reg never said a word about this.”

Now was the time: and I said quietly, almost gently, “Reg Hopkins died in your house, Duane.”

“What—”

“I'm sorry. He ODed at your kitchen table.”

“He left alive.”

“Every one of you saw him dead.”

“No!”

I looked them each in the face. “I don't blame you for panicking. You were high on Duane's Tombstones. You were scared you'd be implicated in a
heroin
death. Christ, who needs that in Newbury? So instead of calling the cops, you decided to dump his body.”

“That's not true,” said Michelle.

“Duane, and Rick, and Bill, and Ted threw him in his Blazer and drove him out to the covered bridge.”

Duane said, “You are out of your
mind
, man.”

“And while the guys were dumping him, Michelle and Georgia and Sherry and Susan cleaned up the house. The men got back at three-fifteen. Michelle, you got a bit jumpy and thought somebody was in the house. You all searched, found no one, and by four or so everyone had split.”