Hiss And Tell

10

Even without an alarm clock or a schedule, Sunny still found herself waking up the next morning at the same time she usually rose for work. The old house was quiet as she got washed and dressed, so she was surprised when she padded down the stairs to find coffee, rolls, and various fixings already prepared in the kitchen—and Priscilla and Carson having breakfast. Cillie smiled as Sunny joined them at the table. “Tommy is a partner in his firm and makes his own hours, and Yardley likes to sleep in. But I guess us regular working people are programmed for early rising.”

“Not that we necessarily like it.” Carson smothered a yawn. “And Peter is the mad genius type who’ll work on something until five in the morning and then crash all day.”

Sunny saw an opening. “What’s the story with your friend Beau?”

Maybe it was the matrimonial hormones speaking, but Cillie went straight into matchmaking mode. “He’s single, available, and going to be a doctor.”

“Um.” Sunny tried to figure out an answer to that without blowing her cover as a murder investigator. “I was really asking why he seems to be asleep most of the time.”

“That’s because of the brutal schedule he leads.” Carson shook his head. “Beau can put in eighty, even a hundred hours a week as a resident. Besides working in the hospital, he’s still doing conferences and lectures by day, and he’s on call every other night. When he gets some time off, the first couple of days go toward catching up on sleep.”

“According to Carson, Beau should be coming out of hibernation today.” Priscilla grinned.

“I gotta admire him,” Carson said. “Back in school, most of us were just learning how to shuffle money. But from the beginning, Beau was on the premed track. He wanted to do something useful with his life, even if he was also our beer pong champ.”

“I suspect he was also the life of the party in the frat houses.” Sunny grinned. “So if we wind up doing a beer pong tournament tonight, set me up on his team.”

Carson’s face took on an interesting expression. “Beer pong. Do you think we could get away with it?” he asked Cillie.

“As long as the Senator doesn’t hear about it,” she replied. “Maybe out here by the pool. I could talk to Uncle Cale about it.”

“It will have to be tonight,” Carson said. “There was a text message waiting for me when I got up. My parents get in tomorrow.”

Sunny’s reportorial antennae quivered. “You make it sound like all fun ends then.”

“No, but things will get a bit more . . . conventional.” Priscilla chose her words carefully, glancing at her fiancé. “In old WASP families, in the privacy of our summer places, things tend to be a bit, well, informal.”

Translation: shabby, Sunny thought.

Carson looked around at the comfortable but hardly stylish dining room. “And, while de Kruk is an old name in New York, there wasn’t money behind it until my grandfather made his pile, which then Dad parlayed into the stratosphere. Our new wealth requires a lot of marble, gold plating, and publicity—plus some pretty starchy manners. As my father once put it to me, ‘No goddamn SOB is going to call me gauche!’”

“Oh, dear. Will I have to dig out my long white opera gloves for dinner?” Sunny asked.

That got a laugh out of them. “No,” Cillie responded, “but I think you will see ties on the guys.”

“In that case, I think I’d better go home and collect some more-appropriate clothes.” Sunny sighed. She’d hoped to get by with a more casual look, hanging out with Cillie and the younger set. But now she had no choice but to raid what she considered her reporter’s wardrobe for anything that would pass muster with the de Kruks.

“Just let me know when you want to go, and I’ll arrange for a car,” Cillie said.

“Thanks.” Sunny poured herself a cup of coffee, got a roll, cut it open, and spread some preserves on the two halves. The warm roll was delicious, and so was the brew. “And now, a nosy blogger question: I was thinking that today’s post might be about wedding presents.”

“Oh, there’ve been several parties already with gifts galore.” Carson rolled his eyes.

Priscilla dove into the nuts and bolts. “We have a few wedding registries, though of course some people sent old family pieces.”

“AKA, ancient monstrosities that they didn’t want in their own houses anymore,” Carson put in. “Maybe someday, when we have the space, we could have a ‘dud gifts’ room, where all that stuff can sit around and be ugly together. Which is sort of what they’re doing right now, up at the big house.”

“The gifts are here, not still in New York?” Sunny asked in surprise.

“Oh, yeah, taking up most of the old rear parlor,” Carson said. “We needed the space. Some of the stuff was large, as well as ugly.”

“And some of it is interesting—living history.” From Priscilla’s tone of voice, this was a discussion they’d had more than once. “I’ll walk you over once we’re finished here, Sunny. You can look the collection over and decide whether it’s worth a story.”

Sunny allowed herself to savor another cup of coffee before she told Cillie that she was ready. Priscilla led the way past the roadblock and along the path that led to the main house. They passed one of the ever-present security guys in his black Windbreaker. Sunny looked back, but for once this guy wasn’t checking them out at all—either of them. Instead, he was talking into a microphone set on his shoulder.

As Sunny and Cillie approached the house, one of the compound’s golf carts came zooming up from the opposite direction, and Lee Trehearne jumped off in front of them. His greeting was polite enough, especially to Priscilla, but he looked at Sunny as if she were a one-woman torch-waving mob advancing on the house.

Hmmm, Sunny thought, I guess I know who that guy we passed was talking to on his radio.

She went to go around Trehearne, but he stepped into her path, saying, “Well, Ms. Coolidge, what brings you here?”

“Priscilla is bringing me to take a look at the wedding gifts,” Sunny replied. “I’m planning on doing a blog post, maybe taking a few pictures. . . .”

Trehearne’s lips quivered a little. “The gifts that my people are supposed to keep secure?”

Here’s a chance to extend an olive branch, Sunny thought. “Well, sure. I think your security efforts deserve some good press. We could have you and some of your guys in the pictures, too. Let any bad guys out there know what they’re up against.”

“The idea is not to let them know anything about the compound,” Trehearne said.

“It might help discourage them a little,” Sunny countered pleasantly, “if they knew the house was surrounded by surveillance cameras, for instance.”

“That’s possible,” Trehearne admitted. Then his eyes sharpened. “Who told you about the house surveillance?” His tone suggested that whoever had opened his mouth wouldn’t have a job much longer. Sunny drew a deep breath. The last thing she wanted to do was get into an argument with this guy. “Look, Mr. Trehearne, I don’t want to give away any security secrets. I’m just looking for a nice story to humanize the proceedings here.”

“Really, Lee,” Priscilla joined in, “do you think anyone’s going to come in and steal the crystal and silverware? Besides,” she gave a little shudder and said as an aside to Sunny, “as for some of the old family pieces that came our way, I’d never admit it in front of Carson, but I wouldn’t exactly be heartbroken if some of those monstrosities magically disappeared.”

She continued on her way into the house, Sunny behind her, and Trehearne right behind them both. Sunny’s wisecracking alter ego immediately sprang to life. What’s his problem? Is he afraid you’re going to slip some soup spoons into your pocket?

Sunny had only a hazy idea of the layout of the mansion. The only parts she knew were the entrance hall and the route to the dining room. Now she followed Priscilla into one of the wings and down a long hallway, then took a right and came up to a pair of beautiful old sliding doors with yet another security guy standing in front of them. He drew himself up to attention, shooting a “What do I do now, Boss?” look at Trehearne.

The security honcho sighed. “Open the doors, Alvin. Ms. Kingsbury wants to inspect the gifts.”

After this buildup, Sunny was anticipating something on the order of Ali Baba’s cave. And as Alvin the guard pushed one of the doors aside, the view seemed pretty damned close. The first thing Sunny saw was something that looked like a lazy Susan on steroids—or maybe hit by gamma rays. It was a sort of buffet centerpiece that rose almost three feet high. In the middle was a basket in the form of a Chinese pagoda, surrounded by a framework of a good dozen arms disguised as sinuous tree limbs, each holding out serving dishes. Altogether, the thing was larger than Sunny’s kitchen table.

Priscilla stood beside it with a critical glare. “It’s a solid silver epergne, more than two hundred years old, and takes up more space than some pieces of furniture,” she said, echoing Sunny’s thoughts. “What are we supposed to do with it?”

“Well, it’s got lots of room for chips and dips at a party,” Sunny suggested. “Or you could put in plumbing and have private bird baths.”

Cillie laughed at that. “I like the idea. But no, we’ll probably hide it somewhere, then spring it as an awful surprise when the next generation of the family gets married.”

They went around the huge, ornate, and heavy serving tray to a table filled with crystal glassware of all descriptions. Sunny stared. “Now I get it. If you’re going to have a party big enough to use all those glasses, one of those silver thingies isn’t going to be enough.”

Cillie ducked her head in embarrassment. “Having every kind of glass is sort of a de Kruk thing. They’re completists.” She moved over to a small wooden chest. “Now this is an heirloom I actually like. I’m hoping it will be our everyday silver.” She opened the top to display a dully gleaming set of knives, forks, and so on, all of them looking old enough that George Washington could have eaten with them.

Sunny hefted a soup spoon heavy enough to brain someone. “Solid silver again, huh? Well, you’ll burn calories just by hefting these things while you eat.”

They went through the rest of the wedding loot. The chinaware was modern, and some of the “old gifts” were hilarious, like the moose head that was supposedly a hunting trophy from Teddy Roosevelt, or the shark-tooth necklace some Kingsbury ancestor brought back from a missionary stint in the South Seas. Sunny pulled out her digital camera and shot a few pictures, starting with a photo of a glowering Trehearne next to the oversized epergne, for scale. Other shots featured a smiling Priscilla holding up various items.

By the time she finished with the photography, Sunny had the rough outline for her post already in her head. She thanked Priscilla, smiled at Lee Trehearne and Alvin, and headed back to the guesthouse and her computer. Then it was a case of generating her story and weaving in appropriate photos. By the time she was done, they were well into the day, but Sunny was pleased.

I bet Ken will like it, too, she thought. Which reminded her that she should go for more local color, something the Courier’s readers might appreciate. Maybe I can talk to Fiona Ormond and get a list of local companies involved in the wedding. I’m sure there must be some; Priscilla would have wanted to use them, even if the snooty de Kruks might not have considered it.

As Sunny typed in a reminder note to herself, someone knocked on the door to her room. Cillie stood in the doorway, dressed in a damp bathing suit and her terrycloth beach wrap. “I hope I’m not disturbing your work,” she apologized.

“Just finishing,” Sunny said.

“Oh, good.” Priscilla paused for a moment, then lowered her voice. “Uncle Cale volunteered to get some supplies for the—um—activity you suggested, and he asked if you wanted to share the ride. I wondered if you wanted to use it as an opportunity to go back to your place and get some more clothes.”

Sunny had a brief flash of being forced to sit down to dinner with the de Kruks in her old bathing suit, and sighed. “I suppose the sooner I get some more stuff together, the better.”

“Uncle Cale said you could meet him in the parking area with the golf carts in, say, half an hour. Is that okay?”

“Yes, I’ll be done and ready.” Sunny watched Cillie set off down the hallway, and then shut the door. She returned to her computer, and sent an e-mail to Ken that her blog post was ready to go. Then she got out her cell phone. Her dad sounded as if he’d been roused from a nap, but he was happy to hear from her. “Are you going to be discontented with your old room now that you’ve been sleeping in the lap of luxury?” Mike teased.

“The furniture in my old room is probably newer than the stuff in here,” she told him. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I had a salad supper last night, afraid the food police would come in and bust me if I had a hamburger.” Mike paused. “You’re missed—not just by me, but by your furry friend. He’s been moping around, barely touching his food. Spends most of his time by the living-room window. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was watching for you.”

“Shadow was pretty upset when I left,” Sunny said. “But that sounds more like dog behavior. Something that I’d expect from Toby—except he’d probably chew off the windowsill while he was waiting.”

Mike laughed, but his heart wasn’t in it. “That dumb dog,” he growled.

“But I wasn’t calling to make cracks about Toby,” Sunny said. “I have to come home and get some more clothes. The de Kruks are arriving tomorrow, and apparently that means the dress code gets stricter.”

“Well, I’ll be glad to see you,” Mike told her. “As for the furball, we’ll just wait and see.”

About twenty minutes later, Sunny walked along the path that led to the miniature parking lot with the golf carts and found Caleb Kingsbury leaning against one. “I hope we’re not climbing aboard that jalopy to go into town,” she told him. “It’s a little open for my taste.”

He laughed. “No, the real cars are over there.” He pointed into the distance. “But I figured it was easier to meet you here than give directions.” He and Sunny strolled along in the direction he’d pointed. Clothes on her mind, Sunny noticed that Cale himself was wearing a faded T-shirt and a pair of disreputable cargo shorts. The only decent things on him were a new-looking pair of Top-Siders.

“I see you’ve dressed to meet your public,” Sunny said as they reached an area, shaded by trees, where several town cars were parked.

He turned with a grin. “What, I’m not fancy enough to go to a wholesaler’s to buy beer?”

There’s one local business I can’t link to this wedding, Sunny thought. A source for champagne, maybe, but a beer supplier—no. Cale Kingsbury wasn’t finished yet. “Did Cillie mention that you’re expected to download an official set of rules for this beer pong tournament?”

“Wonderful.” Sunny rolled her eyes. “I only said that as a joke, you know, and now it seems to have taken on a life of its own.”

“Oh, just go with the flow,” Cale told her with another grin. “So many places have their own house rules. This will avoid arguments.”

Which you don’t want when there’s a lot of beer being consumed, Sunny silently agreed. “Okay.” She sighed. “I’ll take care of that after I come back from upgrading my wardrobe.”

“Oh, right. Got to clean up for the de Kruks.” Cale looked down at his grungy outfit. “I know I have one suit aboard the Merlin. Hope I’ve got some other presentable stuff stowed away. Otherwise, I’ll have to dig out something that’s been sitting around for God knows how many years.” He patted his stomach. “Will it still fit?”

“More to the point, will you be able to get the smell of mothballs out?”

“Maybe if I hang them from a yardarm in the fresh air,” he said as he bypassed the shiny black town cars for a much humbler and nondescript station wagon. Jingling the keys, Cale opened the passenger side door. He handed Sunny in like the practiced gentleman he was, then went around to the driver’s side and climbed aboard. Inside the enclosed space, Sunny got a strong whiff of Cale’s cologne and grimaced unintentionally. He instantly looked contrite. “A little too much? I’d been working up a sweat on the boat and splashed some on.”

More like bathed in it, Sunny’s cranky side suggested.

“It’s an interesting scent,” she said aloud.

“It’s sandalwood, and a bunch of other spices. I’ve worn it for years, ever since a lady friend bought it for me at a little place in Paris. My father gives me grief about it. To him all a gentleman needs is a discreet dab of bay rum.”

“Well, times change,” Sunny said.

He started the car, and soon they were passing the troopers and the roadblock. Some people suddenly darted at them from across the street, and Sunny saw the cameras a second too late. She noticed that Cale had arranged one hand to cover the bottom half of his face.

Great, she thought. They probably got me with my mouth hanging open.

“Sorry, should have warned you,” he apologized. “I keep forgetting you’re not used to this, being from the other side.”

“You make it sound like the dark side,” she said.

“I guess it’s all in the way you see it,” Cale replied. “How is it going, by the way? Cillie seems to like you.”

“And that’s even before I suggested a nice round of beer pong.”

Cale refused to be deflected. “How about the others?” he asked. “I saw Tommy Neal giving you the ‘I’m too important to notice you’ routine yesterday. Is he acting a bit more human today? Is Beau?”

“I’m still wondering if I’ll ever get to see Beau fully awake,” Sunny replied.

“He strikes me as a nice kid. So does Carson.”

Sunny nodded. “He and Priscilla seem to get along well.”

“Yeah, that’s a pleasant dividend when they’re trapped in something more like a business merger than an engagement.” Caleb frowned.

Sunny glanced at him.

“Not for attribution,” he said.

She nodded, but pushed. “You’re suggesting . . .”

“I’m suggesting that Augustus de Kruk finally realized he’s carrying too much baggage to ever be president.” Cale shook his head. “I think he finally got the point at one of those political dinners. He wasn’t up on the dais to be roasted, but it seemed like every speaker sent a zinger his way. For a guy who spends a lot of time on television, he was lousy at acting as though it was all in good fun. Carson, on the other hand, came off looking pretty good on Augustus’s reality shows. Not just a pretty face, either—he gave the impression of being a capable executive.”

“So you think Augustus has decided to set things up for Carson, politically?” Sunny asked.

“He’s not going to have the boy run for office next Tuesday, but yeah, I suspect Augustus went looking for a little political oomph to add to Carson’s image. And as it turned out, we Kingsburys had a girl who was the right age.” Cale turned to her, his face dead serious. “My father is no spring chicken anymore, and he’s determined to have his blood in the White House before he goes. He’d rather it was one of her brothers, but he’s old-fashioned enough not to even seriously consider Cillie for the starring role. He’ll settle for First Lady. So yeah, it’s not a shotgun wedding, but Cillie and Carson were strongly encouraged.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing they like one another.” Sunny sighed. “Was it this way in Camelot?”

“You mean the Kennedys and the Bouviers?” Cale asked. “I’ve heard stories—”

Sunny waved that off. “No, no, I meant Arthur and Guinevere. Although maybe all that dynastic stuff would have seemed a lot more natural, way back when.”

They made polite chitchat for the rest of the drive to Sunny’s house. She apologized for taking Cale out of his way, but he waved off her concerns. “I want to do my shopping as far away from Wilawiport as possible,” he said as he held the door for Sunny. “How long do you think you need?”

“Could I have an hour?” Sunny asked. “I’d like to visit with my dad.”

*

Shadow knew how to wait, if he had to. He’d done it before, hunkered down in front of mouse holes, waiting for the prey to emerge. But it had been a while since he’d had to do that. And this wait seemed to stretch on for a long, long time.

He skimped on sleep, which was a very bad thing for a healthy cat. Shadow knew that, when he found himself nodding off in his water bowl. Bad, bad, bad.

The Old One tried to be nice to him, feeding him and talking to him. But it wasn’t the same as having Sunny around. And when the Old One settled himself on the long, soft chair, it just about drove Shadow crazy. He began to consider one of the things that made light on the table beside the sleeping two-legs. A little determined pushing, and it would fall to make a wonderful crash, sure to wake the Old One. If Shadow couldn’t sleep, why should this human get to?

Finally, Shadow was so tired, he decided to try for a light doze. He scrambled up onto the pillows away from the snoring Old One, then stretched to climb onto the very top of the couch, beside the window. The sun was coming in and it was very comfortable, but Shadow didn’t care about that. He wanted to see and hear what was going on in the front of the house, and this was the best place to do that. He draped himself along the top of the couch and peered out the window with eyes that grew heavier and heavier until finally his head slid down.

Just a short nap, he told himself, a little doze.

But when his eyes opened, the sun had moved quite a distance in the sky. Shadow blinked. What had wakened him? It wasn’t the Old One, who made his usual noises. No, it was the rumble of an engine. Shaking himself awake, Shadow saw a go-fast thing come up the driveway and stop. A strange two-legs got out and opened a door. Then Sunny came out!

Shadow gave a stifled mew of excitement and dashed for the door. He heard the rattle of keys, and when the door opened, he raced around Sunny in a dance of welcome. She’d come back! She’d come home!

But even in the middle of his greeting, he caught that spicy, strange scent he’d found on Sunny before. And it was much stronger. Shadow faltered. What was going on here? Everything seemed all right. Sunny and the Old One sat down and talked. But Shadow moved restlessly around, marking Sunny’s shins and ankles. Couldn’t the Old One smell the strange scent? Especially the hint of male beneath it?

Maybe not, Shadow thought. With all the stinks the Old One gives off, maybe he can’t smell anything anymore.

After a while, Sunny looked at the thing on her wrist. That was always a bad sign. When humans did that, they often jumped up and started running around, ignoring cats.

Sure enough, Sunny got up. Shadow followed, determined not to let her out of his sight. But when she climbed the stairs and got to her room, she closed the door in his face!

Shadow raised a paw to claw at the wood, but he knew that wouldn’t do much. Instead, he went across the hall and hid inside the room of tiles, barely letting one eye peek around the door frame. It was cool in there—cold, really—but he kept his post.

It was worth it! After a while, Sunny came out, and Shadow all but sprang across the hall, getting into the room before Sunny closed the door. He stretched up to look over the top of her bed—and his worst suspicions were confirmed. She had piles of clothing up there, not fresh from the wash, but with dead smells from sitting in a closet. He had to get very close to get any scents at all. What did she want with these old things? Was she going to get rid of them?

He heard Sunny’s footsteps in the hall and darted under the bed, peering out as she came into the room. Worse and worse. She came in with another one of those big things for carrying clothes and put it up on the bed, then began putting things in it. Shadow stayed hidden until she turned away to the closet. Then he made his move.

She’s not leaving without me this time, he thought.