Downstairs, Margo worked in the kitchen. Her face was pinched in thought. She looked dour. Evelyn Hume sat at a piano in an alcove off the living room, her expression remote, her hands forceful as she played a polonaise. Ronald of the white shoes was not in any of the ground-floor areas, nor did I find Jimmy Hume or Shannon Taylor.
I stood in the central hallway. I almost materialized to go to the kitchen when I decided to look over the grounds. The sound of a steel guitar led me over a row of poplars. Below was a sparkling swimming pool in the shape of a T and a cabana.
Green-and-cream-striped awnings provided shade. Jimmy Hume lounged on a cushioned deck chair. He wore swim trunks, but they appeared dry, and a laptop was propped on his knees. The music thrummed from speakers mounted on the cabana. I floated behind him, read over his shoulder.
…and the oil-bearing layers are reminiscent of a sponge, in that…
I moved to the other side of a hedge and swirled present as Francie the Frump. My soft-soled flip-flops made no sound as I strolled around the greenery and crossed the deck. “Hello.”
He looked up in surprise, but put aside the laptop and came to his feet.
I appreciate good manners. He was also a hunk, dark hair thick on his tanned chest, flat stomach, powerful legs, and the good looks of the Hume men.
“May I help you?” His voice was youthful, but confident. Millions in the bank have a way of instilling confidence.
“I’m Francie de Sales, Kay Clark’s assistant. I wondered if I might visit with you for a moment.” I pushed up the granny glasses and endeavored to appear innocuous. Of course, that is always a challenge with red hair, despite a lack of makeup.
He closed the laptop and gestured toward a white wrought-iron table and chairs. When we were seated, he looked at me inquiringly, but said nothing. He reminded me of a long-ago movie actor, Montgomery Clift.
I explained in a diffused and rambling fashion that I was gathering material for the book about Jack’s life. I leaned forward, pen poised above an open notebook, my expression earnest and slightly dim-witted. “I hope you will describe your uncle’s last few days. I understand you had a difficult exchange with him the day he died.” I made my tone confidential and sympathetic.
His face twisted in a frown. “So who’s mouthing off about me?”
“My sources are confidential.” I sounded regretful. “Of course, that’s why I am asking you. Everyone deserves to defend themselves.”
“There’s nothing to defend.” He was clearly angry. “I tried to talk to Jack and he blew me off.” There was depth of pain in Jimmy’s anguished eyes. “He treated me like I was a stranger.”
I felt an instant of connection with Jack Hume. That final day a powerful force had driven him. Something mattered terribly to him, mattered so much he couldn’t take the time to understand his nephew’s distress.
I was also touched by Jimmy’s misery. There was grief in his eyes as well as anger. “Did you want to talk to him about Shannon?”
“Jack blew her off, too. I’d never seen her so upset.” Jimmy was gruff. “I didn’t want her hurt, not like that. She had a big-time crush on him and he made her feel like a silly fool. I knew all along that Jack wasn’t serious about her, but he shouldn’t have dumped her like that. I was going to tell him he was a jerk.”
“Is that why you threatened to knock him flat the next time you saw him?”
Jimmy’s jaw jutted. “Yeah. I would have. After dinner, I was going to make him pay. I went up to the balcony.”
I looked at him in a confused fashion, but there was no confusion in my mind. “Let me see. I thought he fell down the balcony steps. If you went that way—”
Jimmy shook his head. “I was inside. I came up the interior stairs.”
I observed his handsome face. I liked him. I wasn’t sure I believed him.
“I went through the ballroom and out to the balcony. He wasn’t there.” Jimmy looked half sick. “If I’d gone down the steps, I guess I would have found him. Instead, I went back into the house.”
Shannon Taylor wasn’t in the house nor was she attending Evelyn. Outside, I floated above The Castle. In addition to the workshop, I saw a long building with five bays that obviously served as the garage. I caught a glimpse of white beyond a row of willows. In an instant, I stood in front of a modest frame house with a screened-in porch.
Inside, Shannon sat on a cheerful yellow chintz sofa. She looked young and lovely in a rosebud-embroidered mauve tank top and blue chambray shorts. She held a book in her lap. The immaculate, simply furnished room was cool and quiet.
I came nearer. The page was opened to “Nocturnal Reverie” by Anne Finch. Shannon pressed a finger against a line.
I bent to see.
But silent musings urge the mind to seek Something, too high for syllables to seek. Tears glistened in her eyes.
I reappeared on the front porch and knocked.
She was unsmiling when she opened the door. She glanced at my dowdy clothes. “No soliciting permitted.”
Before the door closed, I said quickly, “I’m not soliciting. I’m Francie de Sales, Kay Clark’s assistant.”
“Kay Clark.” A scowl marred her young face.
“You can be very important in a book about Jack Hume. I understand he felt a real rapport with you.”
Her eyes widened.
“I hope you will share what you know about his last days.”
“His last days…” Her voice was shaky.
“In his e-mails, he said you were very kind to him and he admired you.” I didn’t feel that was too much of a stretch. Certainly he’d told Kay how flattering he had found Shannon’s attention.
“He did?” Her eyes lighted. “He said that?”
How little it takes when someone hungers for even a crumb from a beloved figure.
“He said you were gorgeous and sweet.”
I could not have given her a greater gift. Her face bloomed. She opened the screen and I followed her into the living room.
When we sat on the sofa, I leaned forward and spoke in a confidential tone. “The hope”—I carefully avoided saying this was Kay’s hope—“is to know what he was thinking and feeling those last few days.”
Shannon talked fast. “He was so much fun. We first spent time together at the pool. If Evelyn doesn’t need me, I can do whatever I want. I help Mom a lot, but I have a bunch of free time. We swam together and twice we went canoeing. One night I ran into him at Mama Pat’s.” She glanced at me and added, “That’s a club near the campus. I love old jazz. I go there a lot. He was there by himself, listening to the piano, having a drink. We danced to ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.’” Her eyes shone with the memory of a night and the touch of his arms and a smiling face looking down at her. Slowly, the softness faded, replaced by a dumb misery compounded of hurt feelings and puzzlement. “We had fun. I know we did. He liked me. I don’t know what went wrong. I thought maybe I’d said something, done something. It was that last weekend and I found him in the study. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered him. He looked upset, and when I asked him if we weren’t friends, it was like he didn’t even know me. He kind of shook his head and told me to go away, he was busy. I couldn’t believe he’d act like that after the way he’d held me. It wasn’t right.” There was aching humiliation in her eyes and passionate denial in her voice. “I found out he was seeing that woman next door. She’s old. I don’t know what he saw in her. But they had something going on. I heard the last thing she said to him. ‘I wish you were dead.’ I hope she feels bad now.”
Margo Taylor cracked another egg into the blue mixing bowl. A splash of sunlight through the kitchen window emphasized lines of discontent that flared from her eyes and her mouth. “I don’t want to talk about Jack Hume.”