A servant hung their dripping raincoats in the coat closet. They heard Betty and Bobby come through the door as well as other people behind them.
Walter took Sister’s hand and led her to the living room, crowded with people. Shaker walked on her other side. People parted for Sister. They usually did.
Tedi sat perched on the edge of her Sheraton sofa, the cost of which alone could buy most Americans a lovely home. When she looked up to see one of her oldest friends and her master, she burst into tears again and stood up, throwing her arms around Sister.“Janie.”
Edward, whose eyes also were wet, stood up next to his wife and embraced Sister when Tedi relinquished her. Then Tedi hugged Shaker, and Edward shook his hand.
“Thank you for coming, Shaker.”
“Mr. Bancroft, I’m terribly sorry for the circumstances.” Shaker, always correct as a hunt servant, addressed Edward, a member, by his surname.
“Yes, yes.” Edward’s lip began to quiver and Shaker reached for his hand again, holding it in both of his.
“Janie, sit with us.” Tedi pulled her down on the sofa.
A servant in livery—the Bancrofts, wonderful though they were, had pretensions—offered refreshments on a tray. Perhaps they weren’t pretentious. It was the world into which both had been raised. This was part of life.
“You knew it was Nola.” Tedi wiped her eyes.
“The ring.” Sister draped her arm around Tedi’s thin shoulders.
“Edward went to see. I couldn’t go. I just couldn’t.” Tedi choked, then composed herself. “I don’t know how Edward did it.”
Sister looked up at the tall man, severely handsome with a full head of closely cropped white hair and a trim military mustache. He greeted guests and shepherded them away from Tedi so she could talk to Sister for a moment.“He’s a strong man.”
“Guess he had to be.” Tedi leaned into Sister. “You can’t run a business like his without people trying to tear you into little pieces.”
“Tedi, I don’t know if something like today’s discovery can bring good. But—maybe it can bring peace.”
Tedi shook her head.“I don’t know. I don’t know about peace, but I must find out what happened to my—baby.”
A chill touched Sister at the base of her neck just as a blazing bolt of lightning hit close to the house. Sparks flew, pink sparks widened into a halo of fireworks, and then the room went dark.
Ken Fawkes, the Bancrofts’ son-in-law, said, “Dad, it must have hit the transformer. I’ll crank up the generator.”
Ken had fallen into the habit of calling his father-in-law“Dad.”
The servants glided into the room, lighting candles, carrying hurricane lamps. Being plunged into darkness was not an uncommon experience in the country.
Sister wondered whether she should tell Tedi what she felt, felt so strongly that it was as if she’d been hit by that bolt of lightning. “Tedi, youwillfind out.”
Tedi turned to look directly into her friend’s warm eyes. “Yes, I think I will. I don’t think I’m going to like it.”
Sister kissed her friend again.“So many people want to see you, Tedi. I’ll come by tomorrow.”
“No, no, let me come to you. I want out of this place.”
“Good.” Tedi embraced her one more time, holding her tightly, then released her.
Sister nodded to people, shaking hands as she made her way over to Sybil, Nola’s older sister. Sybil, an attractive forty-six years old, was red-eyed from crying. The sisters had resembled each other, but in Nola, Sybil’s features had found perfection. Sybil’s jaw was a trifle too long, her eyes a light blue, whereas Nola’s were electric blue just like Tedi’s.
Scattered throughout the house were family photographs. If Nola had not been in those photographs your eye would have focused on Sybil, a pretty girl. But Nola was there and you couldn’t take your eyes off her.
On a few occasions, Sybil’s resentment of her sister would explode. Everyone understood, even Sybil’s own peers when they were children. It was damned hard to be outshone by your bratty little sister, and yet Sybil did love her. The two of them could fall into transports of giggles, pulling pranks, riding first flight in the hunt field. Both were good students, both were good with people, and both clung to each other as the children of the very rich often do once they discover they are very rich.
“Sister—” Sybil didn’t finish her sentence as the tears came.
Sister took her in her arms.“Be strong. Grab mane. Eyes up.” She told her the same thing she used to tell her when Sybil faced a big fence as a small child. And Sybil had been good to Ray Junior. Sister loved her for that. Sybil was a few years older than her son, yet always paid attention to him and rode with him. Both of them could ride like banshees.
Nola, while always friendly to Ray Junior, was too busy conquering men even as a fourteen-year-old to pay much attention to the boy. Nola had discovered her powers early and was determined to use them.
“I will.” Sybil sniffed.
Ken joined them.“Thank you for coming.” He embraced Sister.
“I’m just so glad you and the children are here.”
“We haven’t told the children all of it. Only that their Aunt Nola was finally found. What do you tell a ten-year-old and a six-year-old in a situation like this?” Ken shrugged.
“The truth—as gently as you can, because if you don’t, someone else will,” Sister forthrightly replied. “They’re strong.”
“Mother wants us to move back into the big house, but we can’t. We’re staying at Hunter’s Rest, but I’ll be with Mother every day,” Sybil said.
Hunter’s Rest, a two-story frame house, was located at the southernmost border of the large estate. It once housed the farm manager.
“If you need to get the children away, drop them with me. The S litter”—Sister mentioned a robust litter of foxhound puppies whelped in mid-May—“need walking out and handling. And you know they’re always as welcome as you are.”
“Thank you.” Ken placed his large hand on her shoulder. Apart from a slight paunch, he was holding his own against middle age. A few strands of gray appeared in his sandy hair and eyebrows. A small bald spot like a tonsure bore testimony to the encroaching years, but one had to be taller than Ken to see it.
Later, as Sister and Shaker drove back through the continuing rain, Shaker loosened his dark blue tie.“Had the damndest feeling.”
“What?”
“Well”—he paused, then sheepishly looked over at Sister—“I think I’ve seen too many TV mysteries.”
“What?” she persisted, knowing he’d have to work up to anything that couldn’t be proven by logic.
“Well, I felt that somebody in that room knew—knew what had really happened to Nola.”
CHAPTER 4
The windshield wipers on the Mercedes S500 flipped at their highest speed as Crawford Howard and his wife, Marty, drove back toward town. They had met and married at the University of Indiana, made a fortune in strip malls, moved to central Virginia, divorced, and remarried, all before age forty-seven. Surprisingly, neither of them appeared exhausted by this process.
“Honey, slow down.” Marty involuntarily shrank back as the water from puddles splashed against her side window.
“This machine can handle everything.”
“This machine must still obey the laws of physics,” she wryly replied. But knowing how he loathed being corrected, she hastened to add, “Edward was glad to see you. I know you’ve had a long day, but thank you for making the effort.”
He slowed to forty-five miles an hour.“That girl must have been something. Those photographs of her all over the house—really something.”
The Howards had moved to Jefferson Hunt Country after Nola’s disappearance.
“Don’t you think people are jumping to conclusions?” Marty’s voice rose.
“What? That she was murdered?”