Moonlight Becomes You

2

He strode briskly along the Cliff Walk, his hair blown by the stiff ocean breeze that had sprung up during the late afternoon. The sun had been wonderfully warm at the height of the day, but now its slanting rays were ineffectual against the cool wind. It seemed to him that the shift in the air reflected the changing quality of his own mood.

Till now he had been successful in his plan of action, but with Nuala’s dinner party only two hours away, a premonition was coming over him. Nuala had become suspicious and would confide in her stepdaughter. Everything could start to unravel.

The tourists had not yet abandoned Newport. In fact there was an abundance of them, postseason day-trippers, anxious to stalk the mansions managed by the Preservation Society, to gape at the relics of a bygone age before most of them were closed until next spring.

Deep in thought he paused as he came to The Breakers, that most marvelously ostentatious jewel, that American palace, that breathtaking example of what money, and imagination, and driv ing ambition could achieve. Built in the early 1890s for Cornelius Vanderbilt II and his wife, Alice, it was enjoyed only briefly by Vanderbilt himself. Paralyzed by a stroke in 1895, he died in 1899.

Lingering for a moment longer in front of The Breakers, he smiled. It was Vanderbilt’s story that had given him the idea.

But now he had to act quickly. Picking up his pace, he passed Salve Regina University, formerly known as Ochre Court, a hundred-room extravagance that stood splendid against the skyline, its limestone walls and mansard roof beautifully preserved. Five minutes later he came upon it, Latham Manor, the magnificent edifice that had been a worthy, more tasteful competitor to the vulgarity of The Breakers. Originally the proud property of the eccentric Latham family, it had fallen into disrepair in the lifetime of the last Latham. Rescued from ruin and restored to reflect much of its earlier grandeur, it was now the residence of wealthy retirees, living out their last years in opulence.

He stopped, feasting his eyes on Latham Manor’s majestic white marble exterior. He reached into the deep pocket of his windbreaker and pulled out a cellular phone. He dialed quickly, then smiled slightly as the voice he had hoped to hear answered. It meant one thing less he had to worry about later.

He said two words, “Not tonight.”

“Then, when?” a calm, noncommittal voice asked after a slight pause.

“I’m not sure yet. I have to take care of something else.” His voice was sharp. He did not permit questions about his decisions.

“Of course. Sorry.”

Breaking the connection without further comment, he turned and began to walk swiftly.

It was time to get ready for Nuala’s dinner party.

3

Nuala Moore hummed as she sliced tomatoes on the cutting board of her cheerfully untidy kitchen, her movements quick and confident. The late afternoon sun was about to set, and a stiff breeze was rattling the window over the sink. She could already feel a slight chill seeping through the poorly insulated back wall.

Even so, she knew her kitchen was warm and inviting with its red-and-white colonial paper, worn red-brick linoleum, and pine shelves and cabinets. When she finished slicing the tomatoes, she reached for the onions. A tomato-and-onion salad marinated in oil and vinegar and generously sprinkled with oregano was a perfect accompaniment to a roast leg of lamb. Her fingers were crossed that Maggie still loved lamb. When she was little it had been one of her favorites. Maybe I should have asked her, Nuala thought, but I want to surprise her. At least she knew Maggie wasn’t a vegetarian-she had ordered veal the night they were together in Manhattan.

The potatoes were already bouncing in the big pot. When they had finished boiling, she would drain them but not mash them until the last minute. A tray of biscuits was ready to pop in the oven. The green beans and carrots were all prepared, ready to be steamed minutes before she seated her guests.

Nuala peered into the dining room, double-checking. The table was set. She had done that first thing this morning. Maggie would sit opposite her in the other host chair. A symbolic gesture, she knew. Cohostesses this evening, like mother and daughter.

She leaned against the door frame for a moment, reflecting. It would be wonderful to have someone with whom she could at last share this terrible worry. She would wait a day or two, then she would say, “Maggie, I have to talk with you about something important. You’re right, I am worried about something. Maybe I’m crazy or just an old, suspicious fool, but…”

It would be so good to lay her suspicions before Maggie. Even when she was little she had had a clear, analytical mind. “Finn-u-ala,” she would begin when she wanted to share a confidence, her way of letting me know that this was going to be a very serious discussion, Nuala remembered.

I should have waited until tomorrow night to have this party, she thought. I should have given Maggie a chance to at least catch her breath. Oh well, typical of me-I always act first and think afterwards.

But she had wanted to show Maggie off to her friends after talking about her so much. And also, when she asked them to dinner, she had thought that Maggie was arriving a day earlier.

But Maggie had phoned yesterday to say there was a problem with one of the jobs, that it was going to take a day more than expected to complete. “The art director is a nervous Nelly and is agonizing over the shots,” she had explained, “so I can’t start up until around noon tomorrow. But I still should be there by four or four-thirty.”

At four, Maggie had phoned. “Nuala, I tried to call a couple of times earlier, but your line was busy. I’m just now finishing up and heading out to my car.”

“No difference as long as you’re on your way.”

“I just hope I arrive before your guests so I’ll have time to change.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. Just drive carefully and I’ll ply them with cocktails till you get here.”

“It’s a deal. I’m on my way.”

Thinking about the conversation, Nuala smiled. It would have been awful if Maggie had been delayed yet another day. By now she should be around Bridgeport, she thought. She’ll probably get caught in some commuter traffic, but at least she’s on her way. Dear God, Maggie’s on her way to me.

Since there was nothing more she could do for the moment, Nuala decided to sit down and watch the early evening news. That would still leave her time for a nice hot, relaxing bath before people started to arrive.

She was about to leave the kitchen when there was a rap at the back door. Before she could look through the window to see who it was, the handle turned. For the moment she was startled, but as the door opened and her visitor stepped in, she smiled warmly.

“Hello there,” She said. “Good to see you, but you’re not due for a couple of hours, so you can’t stay long.”

“I don’t plan to stay long,” her visitor said quietly.

4

After his mother moved to Florida, selling the house that had been old Squire’s wedding present to Liam’s grandmother, Liam Moore Payne had bought a condominium on Willow Street. He used it regularly during the summer, but even after his sailboat was put into storage at the end of the season, he frequently would come down from Boston on weekends to escape the hectic world of international finance.

The condo, a spacious four-room unit with high ceilings and a terrace overlooking Narragansett Bay, was furnished with the choice contents of the family home. When she had moved, his mother had said, “These things don’t work in Florida, and anyhow I never cared for any of it. You take them. You’re like your father. You love this heavy old stuff.”

As Liam stepped from the shower and reached for a bath towel, he thought of his father. Was he really so much like him? he wondered. Upon arriving home after a day of trading on the ever-mercurial market, his father always had gone straight to the bar in the study and prepared himself a very dry, very cold martini. He would sip it slowly, then, visibly relaxed, he would go upstairs to bathe and dress for the evening.

Liam toweled vigorously, half smiling at the thought that he and his father were very much alike, although they differed on the details. His father’s almost ritualistic soaks would have driven Liam crazy; he preferred a bracing shower. Also, he preferred his martini after he had bathed, not before.

Ten minutes later, Liam stood at the bar in his study, carefully pouring Finlandia vodka into a chilled and ice-filled silver goblet and stirring. Then, straining the drink into a delicate stemmed glass, he drizzled a drop or two of olive juice over the surface, hesitated, and with an appreciative sigh, took the first sip. “Amen,” he said aloud.

It was ten of eight. He was due at Nuala’s in ten minutes, and while it would take at least nine minutes to drive there, he wasn’t worried about being precisely on time. Anyone who knew Nuala was aware that her cocktail hour was apt to last at least until nine and sometimes later.

Liam decided to allow himself a little downtime. He sank onto the handsome couch covered in dark brown Moroccan leather and carefully placed his feet on an antique coffee table that was shaped to resemble a stack of ancient ledgers.

He closed his eyes. It had been a long and stressful week, but the weekend promised to be interesting.

Maggie’s face floated into his mind. It was a remarkable coincidence that she happened to have a tie to Newport, a very strong tie, as it turned out. He had been astonished when he had learned of her connection to Nuala.

He remembered how upset he had been when he realized that Maggie had left the party at the Four Seasons without telling him. Angry at himself for so thoroughly neglecting her, he had been anxious to find her and straighten out the situation. When his inquiries revealed that Maggie had been seen leaving with Nuala before dinner, he had had a hunch that they might be at Il Tinello. For a young woman, Maggie was pretty much set in her ways.

Maggie. He pictured her for a moment, her beautiful face, the intelligence and energy that she radiated.

Liam sipped the last of the martini and, with a sigh, hoisted himself out of his comfortable spot. Time to go, he thought. He checked his appearance at the foyer mirror, noting that the red-and-blue Hermès tie his mother had sent for his birthday went well enough with his navy blazer, although a traditional stripe might be better. With a shrug he decided not to worry about it; it really was time to go.

He picked up his key ring, and, locking the door behind him, set off for Nuala’s dinner party.

5

Earl Bateman was stretched out on the couch, a glass of wine in his hand, the book he’d just finished on the table beside him. He knew it was time to change for Nuala’s dinner party, but he was enjoying a sense of leisure, using the moment to contemplate the events of the past week.

Before coming down from Providence, he had finished grading the papers turned in by his Anthropology 101 class and was pleased to note that all but a few of the students had performed at the A or B level. It would be an interesting-and perhaps challenging-semester with them, he decided.

And now he could look forward to Newport weekends mercifully free of the crowds jamming restaurants and traffic tie-ups so typical of the summer season.

Earl lived in the guest wing of the family home, Squire Hall, the house Squire Moore had built for his youngest daughter on the occasion of her marriage to Gordon Bateman, “the ghoul” as Squire called him because the Batemans had been funeral directors for four generations.

Of all the residences he had presented his seven children, it was by far the smallest, a reflection of the fact that he had been opposed to the marriage. Nothing personal, but Squire had a horror of dying and even forbade the word “death” to be mentioned in his presence. To take into the family bosom the man who undoubtedly would attend to the rituals surrounding his own demise was a continual reminder of the forbidden word.

Gordon Bateman’s reaction had been to convince his wife to name their home Squire Hall, a mocking tribute to his father-in-law and a subtle reminder that none of his other children had thought to so honor him.

Earl had always believed that his own given name was another jab at Squire, since the old man had always tried to convey the impression that he’d been named for generations of Moores who in the county of Dingle had had the courtesy title of squire. A squire in Dingle tugged his forelock in homage to an earl.

After Earl finally convinced his father that he had no inten tion of becoming the next Bateman funeral director, his parents sold the mortuary to a private corporation that retained the family name and hired a manager to run it.

His parents now spent nine months of the year in South Carolina, near his married sisters, and had urged Earl to take over the entire house during those months, an offer he declined. The wing was arranged to his liking, with his books and artifacts locked away in glass-fronted cabinets against the possibility of careless dusting. He also had a sweeping view of the Atlantic; Earl found the sea infinitely calming.

Calm. That was perhaps the word he valued most.

At the noisy New York reunion of Squire Moore’s descendants, as much as possible he had stayed on the sidelines where he could simply observe the lot of them. He tried not to be too judgmental, but he did not join in their “can you top this?” tales. His cousins all seemed to be given to bragging about how well they were doing, and like Liam, they all loved to regale each other with far-fetched stories about their eccentric-and occasionally ruthless-ancestor.

Earl also knew how gleefully some of them seized on his father’s background as a fourth-generation funeral director. At the reunion, he had overheard two of them belittling him and making snide jokes about undertakers and their profession.

A pox on the lot of them, he thought now as he swung his feet to the floor and sat up. It was ten of eight, time to get a move on. He wasn’t looking forward to going to Nuala’s dinner party tonight, but on the other hand, Maggie Holloway would be there. She was extremely attractive…

Yes, her presence would ensure that the evening would not be dull.

6

Dr. William Lane, director of the Latham Manor Residence, looked at his watch for the third time in five minutes. He and his wife were due at Nuala Moore’s place at eight o’clock; it was ten of eight now. A large, balding man in his fifties, Dr. Lane had a soothing bedside manner with his patients-an attitude of forbearance that did not extend to his thirty-nine-year-old wife.

“Odile,” he called, “for God’s sake, get a move on.”

“Right with you.” Her voice, breathy and musical, floated down the stairs of their home, a structure that once had been the carriage house of Latham Manor. A moment later she rushed into the living room, still fastening an earring.

“I was reading to Mrs. Patterson,” she said. “You know how it is, William. She’s not used to the residence yet, and she resents the fact that her son sold her house out from under her.”

“She’ll settle in,” Lane said dismissively. “Everyone else seems to have managed to end up being quite happy here.”

“I know, but it sometimes takes a while. I still say a little TLC while a new guest is adjusting is important.” Odile walked to the mirror over the carved marble fireplace. “How do I look?” She smiled at her wide-eyed, blond-haired reflection.

“You look lovely. You always do,” Lane said shortly. “What do you know about this stepdaughter of Nuala’s?”

“Nuala told me all about her when she visited Greta Shipley last Monday. Her name is Maggie, and Nuala was married to her father years ago. She’s going to stay for two weeks. Nuala seems very happy about it. Don’t you think that’s sweet, that they met each other again?”

Without answering, Dr. Lane opened the front door, then stood aside. You’re in a great mood, Odile thought, as she walked past him and down the steps to the car. For a moment she paused and looked at Latham Manor, its marble façade glistening in the moonlight.

Hesitantly she suggested, “I meant to tell you that when I looked in on Mrs. Hammond, she was a bit out of breath and rather pale. I wonder if you should check her before we go.”

“We’re late already,” Dr. Lane replied impatiently as he opened the car door. “If I’m needed I can be back in ten minutes, but I can assure you that Mrs. Hammond will be all right tonight.”

7

Malcolm Norton was not looking forward to the evening. A silver-haired man with an erect, military posture, he made an imposing appearance. It was an appearance, however, that concealed a troubled mind.

Nuala’s call three days ago, asking him to come to dinner tonight and meet her stepdaughter, had been a shock-not the invitation to dinner itself, but the unexpected news that Nuala had a stepdaughter.

A lawyer with a general practice, working alone, Norton had seen his client list reduced drastically in the past few years, partly through attrition-he had become almost expert at handling estates of the deceased-but also due, he was certain, to the arrival of several young, aggressive lawyers in the area.

Nuala Moore was one of his few remaining clients, and he thought he knew her affairs inside out. Never once had she mentioned this stepdaughter.

For some time Malcolm Norton had been quietly urging Nuala to sell her home and become a resident of Latham Manor. Until recently she had shown signs of agreeing that it would be a good move. She admitted that since her husband, Tim, had died, the house was lonely, and it was beginning to cost more and more in repairs. “I know it needs a new roof, that the heating system is antiquated, and anyone who bought it would want to put in central air-conditioning,” she had told him. “Do you think I could get two hundred thousand for it?”

He had reacted carefully, responding, “Nuala, the real estate market here falls apart after Labor Day. Maybe next summer we’d get that much. But I want to see you settled. If you’re ready to move to Latham now, I’ll take the house off your hands for that price and do some basic fixing up. I’ll get my money back eventually, and you won’t have any more expenditures on it. With Tim’s insurance money and the house sale, you could have the best accommodation at Latham, maybe even turn one room of a suite into a studio for yourself.”

“I’d like that. I’ll put in my application,” Nuala had said at the time; then she had kissed his cheek. “You’ve been a good friend, Malcolm.”

“I’ll draw up the papers. You’re making a good decision.”

What Malcolm had not told Nuala was something a friend in Washington had passed along. A proposed change in environmental protection legislation was sure to go through, which meant that some property now protected by the Wetlands Preservation Act would be freed from development restrictions. The entire right end of Nuala’s property would be included in that change. Drain the pond, cut down a few trees, and the view of the ocean would be spectacular, Malcolm reasoned. Moneyed people wanted that view. They would pay plenty for the prop erty, would probably even tear down the old house and build one three times the size, facing the ocean. By his calculations, the property alone would be worth a million dollars. If it all went as planned, he should turn over an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar profit within the next year or two.

Then he would be able to get on with his life. With the profit he would make from the sale of the property, he would have enough cash to settle with his wife, Janice, retire, and move to Florida with Barbara.

How his life had changed since Barbara started working for him as a legal secretary! Seven years younger than he, she was a very pretty widow of fifty-six. Her children were grown and scattered, so she had taken the job in his office just to keep busy. It wasn’t long, however, before the mutual attraction between them was palpable. She had all the warmth Janice had never offered him.

But she wasn’t the kind who would get involved in an office affair-that much she had made clear. If he wanted her, he would have to come to her as a single man. And all it would take to make that happen was money, he told himself. Then…

“Well, are you ready?”

Malcolm looked up. His wife of thirty-five years was standing before him, her arms folded.

“If you are,” he said.

He had been late getting home and had gone directly to his bedroom. This was the first time he had seen Janice since this morning. “What kind of day did you have?” he asked politely.

“What kind of day do I always have?” she snapped, “keeping books in a nursing home? But at least one of us is bringing home a regular paycheck.”

8

At 7:50 P.M., Neil Stephens, managing director of Carson amp; Parker Investment Corporation, stood up and stretched. He was the only one left in the office at 2 World Trade Center, except for the cleaning crew, whom he could hear vacuuming somewhere down the hall.

As the firm’s senior executive, he had a large corner office that afforded him a sweeping view of Manhattan, a view which, unfortunately, he had little time to savor. That had been the case today, especially.

The market had been extremely volatile the last few days, and some of the stocks on the C amp;P “highly recommended” list had reported disappointing earnings. The stocks were all solid, most of them blue chips, and a dip in price now wasn’t really a problem. What was a problem was that too many smaller investors then became anxious to sell, so it was up to him and his staff to convince them to be patient.

Well, enough for today, Neil thought. It’s time to get out of here. He looked around for his jacket and spotted it on one of the chairs in the “conversation area,” a grouping of comfortable furniture that gave the room what the interior designer had called “a client-friendly atmosphere.”

Grimacing as he saw how wrinkled his jacket had become, he shook it and thrust his arms into the sleeves. Neil was a big man who, at thirty-seven, managed to keep his body muscle from sliding into fat by a program of disciplined exercise, including racquetball sessions two nights a week. The results of his efforts were apparent, and he was a compellingly attractive man with penetrating brown eyes that bespoke intelligence and an easy smile that inspired confidence. And, in fact, that confidence was well placed, for as his associates and friends knew, Neil Stephens missed very little.

He smoothed down the sleeves of his jacket, remembering that his assistant, Trish, had hung it up this morning but pointedly ignored it when he had once again tossed it down after lunch.

“The other assistants get mad at me if I wait on you too much,” she had told him. “Besides, I do enough picking up after my husband. How much can a woman take?”

Neil smiled at the memory, but then the smile faded as he realized that he had forgotten to call Maggie to get her phone number in Newport. Just this morning he had decided to go to Portsmouth next weekend for his mother’s birthday; that would put him just minutes away from Newport. Maggie had told him she would be staying there for a couple of weeks, with her stepmother. He had thought they would get together there.

He and Maggie had been dating casually since early spring, when they met in a bagel shop on Second Avenue, around the corner from their East Fifty-sixth Street apartment buildings. They had begun chatting there whenever their paths crossed; they then bumped into each other one evening at the movies. They sat together and later walked over to Neary’s Pub for dinner.

Initially, Neil liked the fact that Maggie apparently took the dates as casually as he did. There was no indication on her part that she viewed the two of them as anything more than friends with a shared interest in movies. She seemed as wrapped up in her job as he was in his.

However, after six months of these occasional dates, the fact that Maggie continued to act uninterested in him as anything other than a pleasant film and dinner companion was beginning to annoy Neil. Without realizing it was happening, he had found himself becoming more and more intent on seeing her, on learning all he could about her. He knew that she had been widowed five years ago, something that she mentioned matter-of-factly, her tone suggesting that emotionally she had put that behind her. But now he had started wondering whether she had a serious boyfriend. Wondering and being worried about it.

After puzzling for a minute, Neil decided to see if maybe Maggie had left her Newport number on her answering machine. Back at his desk, he listened to her recorded message: “Hi, this is Maggie Holloway. Thanks for calling. I’m out of town until October 13th.” The machine clicked off. Obviously she wasn’t interested in getting messages.

Great, he thought glumly as he replaced the receiver and walked over to the window. Manhattan stretched before him, ablaze with lights. He looked at the East River bridges and remembered that when he had told Maggie his office was on the forty-second floor of the World Trade Center, she had told him about the first time she had gone for a cocktail at Windows on the World atop the center. “It was just becoming dusk. The lights of the bridges went on, and then all the building and streetlights started glowing. It was like watching a highborn Victorian lady put on her jewelry-necklace, bracelets, rings, even a tiara.”

The vivid image had stayed with Neil.

He had another image of Maggie as well, but this one troubled him. Three weeks ago, on Saturday, he had dropped in to Cinema I to see the thirty-year-old French classic A Man and a Woman. The theater wasn’t crowded, and halfway through the film, he had noticed that Maggie was sitting alone a few rows ahead of him, four seats over. He had been about to join her when he realized that she was crying. Silent tears coursed down her cheeks, and she held her hand to her mouth to prevent sobs, as she watched the story of a young widow who could not accept her husband’s death.

He had hurried out while the credits rolled, not wanting her to see him, thinking that she would be embarrassed to be caught so emotionally vulnerable.

Later that evening, he had been in Neary’s having dinner with friends when she came in. She had stopped by his table to say hello, then had joined a group at the big corner table. There had been nothing in her face or manner to indicate that earlier she had been watching a film and identifying with a heartbroken young widow.

Damn! Neil thought, she’s gone for at least two weeks, and I have no way to reach her. I don’t even have the faintest idea of her stepmother’s name.

9

Except for that uptight art director, it had been a good week, Maggie reflected as she turned off Route 138 in Newport. Both photo shoots this week had turned out exceptionally well, especially the one for Vogue.

But after the meticulous attention she had to give to noting how the camera was capturing every fold of the astronomically priced gowns she was photographing, it was a distinct joy to put on jeans and a plaid shirt. In fact, with the exception of a blue silk print blouse and matching long skirt she planned to wear tonight for Nuala’s dinner party, everything she had brought to wear on this vacation was quite casual.

We’re going to have such fun, she thought. Two uninter rupted weeks in Newport. Nuala and I really will have a chance to catch up with each other! She smiled at the prospect.

It had been a surprise when Liam called to say that he would be at Nuala’s tonight, as well, although she should have realized he spent a fair amount of time in Newport. “It’s an easy drive from Boston,” he had pointed out. “I go there fairly regularly for weekends, especially off-season.”

“I didn’t know that,” she had said.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Maggie. Maybe if you weren”t out of town so much…”

“And maybe if you didn’t live in Boston and use your New York apartment so little…”

Maggie smiled again. Liam is fun, she thought, even though he does take himself too seriously much of the time. Stopping at a red light, she glanced down and rechecked her directions. Nuala lived just off the fabled Ocean Drive, on Garrison Avenue. “I even have a view of the ocean from the third floor,” she had explained. “Wait till you see it and my studio.”

She had called three times this week to be sure there were no changes of plan. “You are coming, Maggie? You won’t disappoint?”

“Of course not,” she had assured her. Still, Maggie had wondered if it was only her imagination or was there something in Nuala’s voice, an uneasiness that perhaps she had detected in her face the night they had dinner in Manhattan. At the time, she had rationalized that Nuala’s husband had died only last year, and she was starting to lose her friends as well, one of the nonjoys of living long enough to get old. Naturally a sense of mortality has to be setting in, she reasoned.

She had seen the same look on the faces of nursing home residents she had photographed for Life magazine last year. One woman had said wistfully, “Sometimes it bothers me a lot that there’s no one left who remembers me when I was young.”

Maggie shivered, then realized the temperature in the car had dropped rapidly. Turning off the air-conditioning, she opened the window a few inches and sniffed the tangy scent of the sea that permeated the air. When you’ve been raised in the Midwest, she thought, you can’t ever get enough of the ocean.

Checking her watch, she realized it was ten of eight. She would barely have time to freshen up and change before the other guests began to arrive. At least she had phoned Nuala to let her know she was getting off to a late start. She had told her she should be arriving just about now.

She turned onto Garrison Avenue and saw the ocean in front of her. She slowed the car, then stopped in front of a charming clapboard house with weathered shingles and a wraparound porch. This had to be Nuala’s home, she thought, but it seemed so dark. There were no outside lights turned on at all, and she could detect only a faint light coming from the front windows.

She pulled into the driveway, got out, and, without bothering to open the trunk for her suitcase, ran up the steps. Expectantly she rang the bell. From inside she could hear the faint sound of chimes.

As she waited, she sniffed. The windows facing the street were open, and she thought she detected a harsh, burning smell coming from inside. She pressed the doorbell again, and again the chimes reverberated through the house.

There was still no answer, no sound of footsteps. Something has to be wrong, she thought anxiously. Where was Nuala? Maggie walked over to the nearest window and crouched down, straining to see past the lacy fringe on the partly drawn shade, into the darkness inside.

Then her mouth went dry. The little she could see of the shadowy room suggested it was in wild disorder. The contents of a drawer were strewn on the hooked carpet, and the drawer itself was leaning haphazardly against the ottoman. The fireplace was opposite the windows and flanked by cabinets. All of them were open.

What faint light there was came from a pair of sconces over the mantel. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Maggie was able to pick out a single high-heeled shoe, turned on its side in front of the fireplace.

What was that? She squinted and leaned forward, then realized she was seeing a small stockinged foot, extending from behind a love seat near where the shoe had fallen. She lunged back to the door and twisted the handle, but it was locked.

Blindly, she rushed to the car, grabbed the car phone and punched in 911. Then she stopped, remembering: Her phone was attached to a New York area code. This was Rhode Island; Nuala’s number began with a 401 area code. With trembling fingers she punched in 401-911.

When the call was answered, she managed to say “I’m at 1 Garrison Avenue in Newport. I can’t get in. I can see someone lying on the floor. I think it’s Nuala.”

I’m babbling, she told herself. Stop it. But as the calm, unhurried questions came from the dispatcher, with absolute certainty Maggie’s mind was shouting three words: Nuala is dead.

10

Newport Chief of Police Chet Brower stood aside as the police photographer snapped pictures of the crime scene. Aside from the wrenching fact that someone in his jurisdiction had been savagely murdered-Nuala Moore had suffered multiple blows to her head-there was something about the entire picture that bothered him.

There had been no reported incidents of housebreaking in this area for several months. That kind of thing started when many houses were closed for the winter and so became favorite targets for looters looking for television sets and such. Amazing how many people still didn’t have an alarm system, Brower thought. Amazing, too, how many people were careless about locking their doors.

The chief had been in the first squad car to answer the 911 call. When they had arrived at the house, and the young woman who identified herself as Mrs. Moore’s stepdaughter pointed to the front window, he had looked in and seen just what she had reported. Before forcing the front door, he and Detective Jim Haggerty had gone to the back of the house. Careful to barely touch the doorknob to avoid smudging existing fingerprints, he had found the door unlocked and they had gone in.

A flame was still flickering under a pot, now burned black. The acrid smell of charred potatoes overwhelmed the other, more pleasant scent. Roasting lamb, his mind had registered. Automatically he had turned off the stove’s burners before going through the dining room into the living room.

He hadn’t realized that the stepdaughter had followed them until they reached the body and he heard her moan. “Oh, Nuala, Finn-u-ala,” she had said as she sank to her knees. She reached out her hand toward the body, but he grabbed it.

“Don’t touch her!”

At that moment the front doorbell chimed, and he remembered noticing that the table in the dining room was set for company. Approaching sirens announced that more squad cars were on the scene, and in the next few minutes the officers had managed to get the stepdaughter and other arriving guests into a neighbor’s house. Everyone was told not to leave until the chief had a chance to talk to them.

“Chief.”

Brower looked up. Eddie Sousa, a rookie cop, was beside him.

“Some of the folks waiting to talk to you are getting kind of restless.”

Brower’s lifelong habit of frowning, whether in deep thought or annoyance, furrowed the skin of his forehead. The cause this time was annoyance. “Tell them I’ll be over in ten minutes,” he said testily.

Before leaving, he walked through the house once more. The place was a mess. Even the third-floor studio had been ransacked. Art supplies were thrown on the floor, as though hastily examined and discarded; drawers and cabinets had been emptied. Not too many intruders who had just committed murder would have taken the time for so thorough a search, he reasoned. Also, it would seem obvious from the overall appearance of the house that no money had been spent on it in a long time. So what was there to steal? he wondered.

The three second-floor bedrooms had been subjected to the same search. One of them was tidy, except for the open closet door and yanked-out dresser drawers. The bedding had been turned back, and it was obvious the linen was fresh. It was Brower’s guess that this room had been prepared for the stepdaughter.

The contents of the largest bedroom were scattered everywhere. A pink leather jewelry chest, the same kind he once gave his wife for Christmas, was open. What was obviously costume jewelry was scattered on the surface of the maple lowboy.

Brower made a note to ask Nuala Moore’s friends about any valuable jewelry she might have had.

He spent a long moment studying the bedroom of the deceased in its disarray. Whoever did this wasn’t a vicious, common thief, or a drug-addicted burglar, he decided. He had been looking for something. Or she had been looking for something, he amended. Nuala Moore had apparently realized her life was in danger. From the look of things, his guess was that she had been running in an attempt to escape when she was struck down from behind. Anyone could have done that-man or woman. It didn’t require great strength.

And there was something else Brower noticed. Moore had obviously been preparing dinner, which suggested she was in the kitchen when the intruder arrived. She had tried to escape her attacker by running through the dining room, which meant the intruder must have been blocking the kitchen door. He or she probably came in that way, and since there was no sign of forced entry, the door must have been unlocked. Unless, of course, Mrs. Moore had let the intruder in herself. Brower made a note to check later whether the lock was the kind that stayed open once it was released.

But now he was ready to talk to the dinner guests. He left Detective Haggerty to wait for the coroner.

11

“No, thank you,” Maggie said as she pressed her index fingers to her temples. She vaguely realized that she hadn’t eaten since noon, ten hours ago, but the thought of food made her throat close.

“Not even a cup of tea, Maggie?”

She looked up. The kind, solicitous face of Irma Woods, Nuala’s next-door neighbor, hovered over her. It was easier to nod assent than to continue to refuse the offer. And to her surprise the mug warmed her chilled fingers, and the near-scalding tea felt good going down.

They were in the family room of the Woodses’ home, a house much bigger than Nuala’s. Family pictures were scattered on tabletops as well as on the mantel-children and grandchildren, she supposed. The Woodses appeared to be contemporaries of Nuala.

Despite all the stress and confusion, Maggie thought she had the others straight, the ones who were to have been the dinner guests. There was Dr. William Lane, the director of Latham Manor, which she gathered was a senior citizens’ residence. A large, balding man somewhere in his fifties, Dr. Lane had a soothing quality about him as he expressed his condolences. He had tried to give her a mild sedative, but Maggie had refused. She found that even the mildest of sedatives could make her sleepy for days.

Maggie observed that whenever Dr. Lane’s very pretty wife, Odile, said anything, her hands began to move. “Nuala came to visit her friend Greta Shipley at the home almost every day,” she had explained, her fingers gesturing in a come-hither movement as though inviting someone to come closer. Then she shook her head and clasped her fingers together as though in prayer. “Greta will be heartbroken. Heartbroken,” she repeated decisively.

Odile had already made the same remark several times, and Maggie found herself wishing she wouldn’t say it again. But this time Odile amended it with an additional remark: “And everyone in her art class will miss her so much. The guests who attended it were having so much fun. Oh dear, I didn’t even think of that until this moment.”

That would be like Nuala, Maggie thought, to share her talent with others. A vivid memory of Nuala giving her her own palette for her sixth birthday flooded her mind. “And I’m going to teach you how to paint lovely pictures,” Nuala had said. Only it didn’t happen that way, because I was never any good, Maggie thought. It wasn’t until she put clay in my hands that art became real to me.

Malcolm Norton, who had introduced himself to Maggie as Nuala’s lawyer, was standing at the fireplace. He was a handsome man, but it seemed to her that he was striking a pose. There was something superficial-almost artificial-about him, she thought. Somehow his expression of grief, and his statement, “I was her friend and confidant as well as her lawyer,” suggested that he felt he was the one who deserved sympathy.

But then why should anyone think I’m the one to receive condolences? she asked herself. They all know that I’ve only just met Nuala again after over twenty years.

Norton’s wife, Janice, spent most of the time talking quietly to the doctor. An athletic type, she might have been attractive except for the downward lines at the corners of her mouth that gave her a harsh, even bitter, expression.

Thinking about that, Maggie wondered at the way her mind was dealing with the shock of Nuala’s death. On the one hand, she hurt so much; on the other, she was observing these people as though through a camera’s eye.

Liam and his cousin Earl sat near each other in matching fireside chairs. When Liam came in, he had put his arm around her and said, “Maggie, how horrible for you,” but then he seemed to understand that she needed physical and mental space to absorb this by herself, and he did not take the place next to her on the love seat.

Love seat, Maggie thought. It was behind the love seat that they had found Nuala’s body.

Earl Bateman leaned forward, his hands clasped in front of him, as though in deep thought. Maggie had met him only on the night of the Moore reunion, but she remembered that he was an anthropologist who lectured on funeral customs.

Had Nuala indicated to anyone what kind of funeral she would want? Maggie wondered. Maybe Malcolm Norton, the lawyer, would know.

The sound of the doorbell made everyone look up. The police chief Maggie had followed into Nuala’s house now came into the room. “I’m sorry to have detained you,” he said. “Several of my men will take your individual statements, so we will have you out of here as soon as possible. First, though, I have some questions I want to ask you as a group. Mr. and Mrs. Woods, I wish you’d stay, too.”

The chief’s questions were general, things like, “Was Mrs. Moore in the habit of leaving her back door unlocked?”

The Woodses told him that she always left it unlocked, that she even joked about forever mislaying the key to the front door, but she knew she could always sneak in the back.

He asked if she had seemed troubled recently. Unanimously they reported that Nuala had been happy and excited and looking forward to Maggie’s visit.

Maggie felt tears sting the back of her eyes. And then the realization came: But she was troubled.

It was only when Chief Brower said, “Now if you’ll just bear with us a few minutes more while my men ask you each a few questions, I promise you we’ll have you home soon,” that Irma Woods timidly interrupted.

“There is just one thing that maybe we ought to explain. Yesterday, Nuala came over. She had handwritten a new will and wanted us to witness her signature. She also had us call Mr. Martin, a notary public, so that he could make it official. She seemed a bit upset because she said that she knew Mr. Norton might be disappointed that she was canceling the sale of her house to him.”

Irma Woods looked at Maggie. “Nuala’s will asks that you visit or phone her friend Greta Shipley, at Latham Manor, as often as you can possibly manage it. Except for a few charitable bequests, she left her house and everything else she owned to you.”