The Kill (20 page)

S
mitty drove Abigale back to the house and shoved the gearshift into park. “I don’t like the thought of you driving back to Margaret’s all alone. You sure you won’t let me give you a lift? You can leave Margaret’s car here and we’ll swing by and pick it up tomorrow.”

“I’m fine, Smitty. Really,” Abigale said. She opened the passenger door, flooding the cab with light. “Besides, I’d kind of like to spend some more time here going through Uncle Richard’s things, if that’s okay.”

“No need to ask permission,” Smitty replied. “It’s your house now.”

Wow. It was, wasn’t it? Would she ever think of Dartmoor Glebe that way?

He must have sensed her reaction, because he covered her hand with his and said, “I reckon that’ll take some getting used to.”

“That’s for sure,” she murmured, gazing out the open door at the stately ivy-covered home.

“Give it time, Abigale. Your uncle wouldn’t expect you to love this place as much as he did, at least not right off the bat. When the time’s right, you’ll know in your heart what you want to do with Dartmoor Glebe.”

She leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” he replied, but his face flushed with pleasure.

Abigale slid out of the cab and started to close the door, then jerked it back open.

“Wait—I just remembered something I wanted to ask you about.”

She relayed to Smitty what Michael had said about her uncle being preoccupied about a fox in the henhouse. “Do you have any idea what he meant by that?”

“No, can’t say as I do.” Smitty narrowed his eyes and chewed on his lip for a moment. “Unless…”

“What?”

“I was just thinking about something Percy said the other day. Probably just gossip.”

Her heart sped up. “What did he say?”

“Oh, just that one of the hunt members, Charles Jenner, had ended up in the wrong stall again.”

“The wrong stall?”

Smitty ducked his head and gave her a sheepish look. “You know, cheating on his wife.”

“Oh.”

“Percy said rumor has it that it’s a married woman this time.”

“This time?”

“Charles has a bit of a reputation, although his wife seems oblivious to it. Or pretends to be.” He snorted. “In the past, Charles has been discreet enough to graze in other pastures, if you know what I mean, but Percy said this gal is a member of the hunt—and married at that. That’s why I thought of it when you said the bit about the fox in the henhouse. Richard wouldn’t take too kindly to those kinds of goings-on.”

“What would he do?”

“Probably tell Charles to keep his breeches on, or to find another hunt to join.”

Abigale laughed. “And what would Charles do?”

“Oh, I imagine he’d zip it up. There was more riding on Charles staying on Richard’s good side than just his hunt membership. He’s got a contract to buy Percy’s property, Mulvaney Farm, and is fixing on developing it. He was wining and dining Richard something awful; trying to work some kind of deal where if Charles agreed to cluster the homes in such a way that we could still hunt a portion of the property, Richard would speak out publicly in favor of the development.”

“Would Uncle Richard have agreed to that?”

Smitty hunched both shoulders up toward his ears. “Don’t know. He was struggling with it. If we can’t hunt Mulvaney Farm, Margaret’s farm would be landlocked. Cut off from the rest of our territory. The fact is, Charles has a right to develop the property; and he could sure close it to the hunt, no question about that. So Richard was between a rock and a hard place. He’s for preservation of open space, that’s a fact. But if he opposed Charles’s development flat out, there was no question we wouldn’t be hunting there anymore. On the other hand, if Richard reached some kind of deal with Charles, he’d be compromising his principles about land conservation.”

“Why did Charles need Uncle Richard’s blessing, if he had a right to develop the land anyway?”

“Well, now, there’s rights and then there’s
rights
. Charles is hoping to make it some kind of fancy equestrian community, with a clubhouse and restaurant and all, and it’s not zoned for that. It’s strictly single-family residential. He’ll have to apply to the county for a special exception, which is why he wanted Richard’s blessing.”

“How could Uncle Richard help?”

“It’s all political, and your uncle had a lot of influence in this community. Folks looked up to him. If he brokered the deal, it might be an easier pill to swallow.”

Abigale thought about it for a moment. “If he builds an equestrian center on the property right next to Margaret’s, won’t that hurt her boarding and lesson business?”

“Margaret says not. She claims the clientele he’d attract wouldn’t be serious horse people, that he’d be catering to new money. You know, folks looking to build McMansions on postage-stamp-sized lots, pay too much money for horses they can’t ride, that kind of thing. Says it won’t compete with her business at all.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Richard wasn’t either. I think part of his agenda was to work out some kind of compromise that also protected Margaret. And Richard was trying to help Percy, too, for that matter. From what I hear, the shine on Percy’s trust fund has grown pretty dull. I think Percy might be in a heap of financial trouble if this deal doesn’t go through.”

“What a can of worms!” Abigale said. “No wonder Michael thought Uncle Richard seemed preoccupied.”

“You got that right. But don’t you go worrying yourself about it. It’ll all get straightened out in time.” Smitty waved a hand at the house. “You’d better go on and get yourself inside now. The temperature’s dropping like a rock. Feels like a storm’s brewing.”

T
he cozy warmth of the kitchen felt good, and Abigale was in no hurry to get in the car and drive back to Margaret’s. She found a bottle of chardonnay in the refrigerator and poured a glass, reflecting on what Smitty had told her about the hunt turmoil. Her perception of the duties of a master had always been that it was mostly ceremonial. More of an honor than a job. She’d had no idea so much politicking was involved.
Wonder how Manning would handle that?

Abigale sipped the glass of wine as she wandered past the gathering room to her uncle’s study at the far end of the house. She turned on the desk lamp and dropped down on the high-backed swivel chair, letting the rich leather swallow her as she sank against the tufted padding. This part of the house held almost no familiarity to her. Not that it had been off-limits to her exactly; she just remembered it as Uncle Richard’s quiet place where he went to be alone with his books.

The room could easily have been in an old English manor home. In fact, other than the electrical lighting, it could have been transported from another century. She could almost imagine Heathcliff brooding on the Windsor chair beside the rugged stone hearth.

Nary a computer nor other form of modern technology was in sight. Even the telephone was a replica of an old-fashioned candlestick phone. Heavy brocaded drapes framed the deep casement windows, no doubt hung to shield the artwork and antiques from the strong southern sun. And to protect the books. The room was overcome with books. There must have been over a thousand of them, lined precisely along the oak-paneled shelves. A wheeled ladder allowed access to the ones out of reach.

Abigale ran her eyes over the spines, wondering which books had been her uncle’s favorites, and which he hadn’t yet gotten around to reading. She promised herself she’d go through them, when she had time. But the piles of papers stacked neatly across the generous desktop demanded her attention first.

The desk blotter that gobbled up the center of the surface was empty except for a legal pad and leather-bound journal, lined up side by side. She brushed her fingertips across her uncle’s initials embossed in the top rail of the blotter, remembering when she and her mother had purchased it from a store on Banhofstrasse in Zürich, as a Christmas gift a few years back. The Waterman fountain pen she had bought for her uncle in Paris—with the money from her first photo shoot—rested in the pen well.

Abigale slid the chocolate-brown journal closer and flipped it open, using the silky green ribbon that peeked out at the edge of the page bottoms. It was a day planner, opened to the day her uncle had died. A chill wiggled through her and she rubbed her hands along her arms as she scanned the entries on the page: JAY BARNSBY; HUNTING; LONGMEADOW—OPEN DRAINAGE DITCH; TJ.

None of the entries noted a specific time. Rather, Uncle Richard’s bold script sprawled among the lines, irrespective of the times printed at the left of the page; it was more like a list than an actual schedule of appointments. Abigale read the notations again, wondering who or what “TJ” was.

She flipped back a page: DR. PALEY—FALL SHOTS; HUNT BOARD MEETING; LONGMEADOW—REPAIR TIMBER. The preceding pages held more of the same, mostly entries about work to be done at Longmeadow and innocuous daily appointments. She thumbed through the days until a single notation caught her eye: TIFFANIE. The name was sandwiched between HUNTING and NATIONAL SPORTING LIBRARY RECEPTION. Who was Tiffanie?

Abigale kept a finger on that page as she flipped back. There, six days earlier: TIFFANIE JENNER. She stared at the name. Jenner. Was she related to Charles Jenner—the man she and Smitty had just been talking about? His wife, perhaps? She wet her fingers and rifled back several days: MEETING WITH TIFFANIE JENNER—DOGWOOD LANE.

She sipped her wine as she eyed the entries: TIFFANIE JENNER; TIFFANIE JENNER; TIFFANIE; TJ. So TJ must refer to Tiffanie Jenner. Uncle Richard had an appointment with her the day he was murdered. A meeting that most likely had never occurred, since the reference to TJ was listed after the notation regarding Longmeadow.

The phone twittered a shrill
ring-ring
and Abigale jumped, sloshing the glass of wine. Damn it! A splatter landed in the center of the open page, swelling the word HUNTING into an indecipherable smudge of blue ink. She dabbed at the page with her sleeve and grabbed the phone.

“Hello.”

“You’re still there.”

“Hi, Margaret.” She set the base of the candlestick phone on the desk, freeing up a hand, and continued to blot the page of the journal with her sleeve. “Yes, I’m just going through some of Uncle Richard’s things.”

“I was getting worried about you. I didn’t expect you’d stay there so long.”

Abigale glanced at her watch. “It’s only eight o’clock.”

“Only?” Margaret gave a gruff laugh. “I guess you’re used to the European custom of dining fashionably late.”

“I hope I didn’t hold up your dinner.”

“Don’t you worry yourself about it. I didn’t make anything that I can’t heat back up,” Margaret replied, warmth creeping back into her voice. “When can I expect you?”

Abigale wasn’t hungry. At all. “I didn’t know you were expecting me for dinner, so I made a snack here,” she said, feeling guilty for lying. “I’m really sorry. I should have called.”

“Well, no, that’s all right. You don’t have to report to me. I was just worried, that’s all.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Consider it forgotten,” Margaret said, the finality in her tone putting an end to the discussion. “How much longer do you expect to be there?”

“I’m not sure. I just started going through the papers on Uncle Richard’s desk.” She glanced at the wine-splattered page in the journal. “Hey, I have a question. Is Tiffanie Jenner Charles Jenner’s wife?”

“Yes, she is. Why, did you meet her?”

“No, but Uncle Richard had several appointments with her in his day planner.”

“That’s because Tiffanie volunteered to organize the VIP reception at the races. An offer which in hindsight Richard probably wished he had declined.”

“Why?”

“Tiffanie was brown-nosing so hard it was driving Richard crazy.”

“What was she brown-nosing for?”

“Colors. Tiffanie is lobbying for her husband to be awarded his hunt colors, never mind that they only joined the hunt last season. Tiffanie throws a nice party, don’t get me wrong, but she makes sure everyone knows it. Her husband’s no better. That might be enough to earn colors with some hunts, but not ours.”

“I heard Charles Jenner’s name mentioned earlier today. Smitty said there’s a rumor he’s having an affair.”

“I haven’t heard that, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Charles has a history of it. Who was the source of the rumor?”

“Percy.”

Margaret snorted. “Then I’d take that with a grain of salt.”

Good advice. Unless Percy had changed over the years, Abigale would not consider him a reliable source. “Smitty told me Charles wants to develop Percy’s property.”

“That’s true. Another reason Richard was up to his ears with brown-nosing from Tiffanie and Charles.”

“You mentioned Tiffanie is hosting a party. Was Charles doing something else to try to win Uncle Richard’s favor?”

“Mostly just pestering Richard with good intentions. Charles has more newfangled equipment than you can shake a stick at and he’s always wanting to lend one thing or another to the hunt, most of which he hasn’t a clue how to operate.”