The Carriage House

Fifteen

In daylight, Lauren was even more impressed with what she'd done last night. It was a miracle she hadn't been caught. She breathed in the scent of lilacs, now, forever, mingled with the stench of death. Of Ike. Her brother. Dear God, if only he'd let Joanna Thorne find her own way out of her restlessness and depression. If only he'd left Beacon-by-the-Sea after her death instead of hanging around, cheerful, dreaming big dreams, on the prowl for someone else to idolize him.

For a while, Lauren had been sure it was Tess Haviland her brother had chosen as his new project. Yet, as the young graphic designer walked up the carriage house driveway, Andrew Thorne beside her, the hem of her jeans damp and sandy, her short blond curls whipped by the wind and her cheeks decidedly pale, Lauren knew it couldn't be so. Ike went for the vulnerable, the depressed, the ones who wouldn't act on their own dreams without him. That wasn't this woman. It might not have been Joanna, if he'd left well enough alone.

Andrew couldn't have meant to kill him.

Lauren smiled at him, but he didn't smile back, not out of rudeness but obliviousness, she decided. If he'd killed Ike in a premeditated fashion, she'd never have tried to protect him. As it was, she wondered what he must be feeling now, knowing the police hadn't found Ike's remains. Fear? Relief? Anger? He was impossible to predict.

"Hello, Tess," she said graciously. "I hope I haven't come at a bad time. I heard about last night. How absolutely horrible for you."

"Well, it looks as if there never was any skeleton. Luckily."

Lauren nodded. "Indeed. Better this turned out to be a false alarm than an actual dead body."

"Have you talked to the police?"

"Paul Alvarez called. My husband had already heard." She moved away from the lilacs, the sun warm on her face. "Paul wants me to get in touch with my brother, but it's not that easy. Seven years ago, Ike took off for nine months without telling me where he was, without even so much as sending me a Christmas card. It's just the way he is."

Andrew leaned against Tess's rusted car, but Lauren wasn't fooled. She knew he was taking in everything, wondered if he'd guessed what she'd done for him. But it wasn't just for him. It was the right thing to do. Her brother had taken his wife, left his daughter motherless. If Andrew had lost his temper, reverted to his waterfront brawling days, who could blame him? A jury, perhaps, the way they'd blamed Jedidiah Thorne over a century ago, no matter how much Benjamin Morse had deserved his fate. Truth and justice could be so complicated, she thought.

Tess was frowning. "Are the police going to track him down?"

"Why should they go to such trouble?"

"Ms. Montague-"

"Lauren," she corrected with a smile.

"Lauren, Ike was one of my clients, and I want to know he's okay."

"Then find him. Be my guest. I stopped spinning to Ike's tune a long, long time ago." Her tone was cool, but she felt hot inside, out of control, the way she had last night with Richard. She was bruised today, aching, and yet satisfied. "If he wants to come back, he'll come back. If he doesn't, he won't."

"What if he can't?"

"You mean, what if it was Ike's remains you saw? What if someone killed him, buried him in the carriage house cellar and then dug him up when you took an interest in your property?" Lauren smiled again, gentle despite the lava flows burning through her insides. "That's too far-fetched for me, I'm afraid.

And the police, too, I might add. If it's something you want to pursue, be my guest."

"Do you have any idea where Ike might be?" Tess asked.

Lauren sighed. "No, I really don't." She softened deliberately, yet could feel things cooling slightly inside her, as if the outward demeanor she'd maintained for the past year was all at once merging with the inner turmoil she'd been feeling, the ambivalence, the desperate uncertainty over what she should do. She plucked a lilac blossom and touched it to her nose. "Look, I don't mean to sound callous. If I, in any way, even for a second, believed you saw my brother's remains, I'd be sitting on the police until they got moving. I'd hire my own detectives."

"I didn't mean to imply-"

"I know," Lauren said, neatly cutting her off. "Please don't apologize. By the way, how do you like the carriage house?"

"Except for seeing things, just fine."

Tess was stiff, unrelenting and, Lauren knew, convinced of what she'd seen, no matter that she couldn't prove it or even tell herself there was no chance she'd made a mistake. "Please," Lauren said, "don't hesitate to use the Beacon Historic Project archives if you wish to research the carriage house. It has an amazing history, as I'm sure you already know. Stop by anytime."

Tess nodded stiffly. "Thanks."

"Andrew," Lauren said, moving toward him. "I've parked my car at your house. I'd like to say hi to Dolly while I'm here. You'll walk with me?"

He acquiesced, but only after a quick, concerned look at Tess. Something was going on there, Lauren decided. Well, what of it? The point of protecting him wasn't romantic. She simply couldn't allow Andrew Thorne to stand trial for killing her brother-even if it was involuntary manslaughter. It just wasn't right. Dolly had already lost her mother because of Ike. She didn't deserve to lose her father, too.

When she was at her car, Lauren finally turned to Andrew. The wind had shifted, coming off the water now, chilly and damp. She pushed back her hair. "This Tess Haviland worries me, Andrew. She's artistic and obviously has a fanciful imagination. I hope she isn't here just to stir up trouble."

His expression was unreadable, controlled as always. "Why would she stir up trouble?"

"Richard's up for a Pentagon appointment, you know. Senator Bowler is supporting him. It's a sensitive time. You know the senator has enemies-all politicians do." She pulled open her car door, the hot lava flowing inside her again. She had to control it, the way Andrew would, and use it to her advantage. And his. She cut him a self-deprecating smile. "I know that must sound ridiculously Machiavellian, but you must remember this sort of thing from Joanna's work with Richard."

He nodded. "One rat maze after another."

"Yes, that's one way of putting it. I'd hate to see Richard get hurt. He wants this appointment very much. He's dreamed of it for years."

"You think Tess made up the skeleton to undermine him?"

Andrew's tone was neutral, but Lauren felt the bite of his doubt, anyway. She slid onto the car seat, looked up at him with what she hoped was strength, conviction and the right measure of graciousness. "I'm keeping an open mind. I hope you will, too."

She left, gripping the wheel too hard, until she had to pry her fingers loose. She stopped at the project offices. Even Muriel Cookson wasn't around on a Sunday. Lauren relaxed at being in the familiar surroundings, the antiques, the flowers, the pictures of herself and Ike in happier times.

She really did have to get him out of her trunk. "Oh, Ike," she whispered. "Dear God." Two minutes later, Jeremy Carver walked into her office and sat on the wingback chair in front of her desk. He propped one foot up on the opposite knee. "I thought that was your car out front."

"I often come in on the weekend."

"Dedicated."

"Yes." He nodded. "I know what that's like. Mind if I smoke?"

"Yes, Mr. Carver, I do."

"No problem." He leaned back, a man aware of his unprepossessing appearance yet also the extent-and the limits-of his power. "So, why don't you tell me about your visit with Tess Haviland?"

Harl, Dolly and Tess decided to plant catnip for Tippy Tail and the kittens. Andrew pointed out that the kittens would be in new homes before they were big enough to appreciate catnip. It was Tess's idea. She'd ventured off in her little tank of a car and returned with a trunkful of herbs. Rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, chives and catnip. "Even if I don't keep the carriage house," she'd said, "herbs will help sell it."

Andrew didn't know anyone who'd bought a house because of herbs in the garden. She'd suggested planting the catnip in his yard-she didn't want to encourage Tippy Tail to think of the carriage house as home. A nice gesture, but probably too late, seeing how she and her kittens were in a box in the bathroom.

Harl didn't approve. He was supervising. He'd produced garden tools and picked out a spot at the far end of the yard, where Dolly and Tess set to work. "Catnip doesn't spread, does it?" he asked. Tess shrugged. "I don't know. I'm learning as I go along."

"Well, if it does, there's always weed killer."

He finally returned to his shop, back to working on the chest of drawers he was painting. Andrew had finished up his yard work and sat on one of the Adirondack chairs under the shagbark hickory. "I guess planting herbs keeps her mind off skeletons," he said, watching Tess and Dolly bring the watering can over to the catnip. Dolly insisted on helping carry it, which meant she kept banging into it and water splashed out over both of them. Tess didn't seem to mind.

Harl was meticulously applying paint to a drawer. "I think she's got one of those minds that jumps around a lot. Artist. Always thinking."

"Doesn't your mind wander while you're painting?"

"No."

Andrew drank some of the ice water he'd poured for himself. He hadn't offered Tess or Dolly any. They were too busy. And he wanted a minute here in the shade, before Tess left for Boston, to think.

"She saw a skeleton," he said finally.

Harl didn't look up from his painting. "I know it."

"Jedidiah died at sea. There's no grave for him."

"What are you saying? That he was murdered, buried in the carriage house cellar, and the lost at sea story is a cover up?" Harl asked. "I don't buy it. And he died in, what, the 1890s? A skeleton that old, someone would have uncovered it years ago putting in the plumbing or installing a new furnace. Doesn't wash."

Andrew agreed. He'd thought through all the possible scenarios last night, then again while he worked in the yard. "It'd have to be a hell of a coincidence."

"She's not even sure what she saw. If the police had more to go on, they'd act. Otherwise, they're not rocking the boat." Harl dipped his brush into the paint can, then thought better of continuing. He didn't like to work and talk at the same time. He carefully wiped the brush. "Lauren doesn't want to pursue the possibility it might have been Ike down there. The police don't have any reason not to defer to her wishes."

"You and I could push for an investigation," Andrew said. "As the neighbors."

"We could do it ourselves."

"That's ex-cop thinking."

"It's caught-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place thinking. Police aren't going to investigate on our say-so, not with Lauren Grantham Montague wanting to drop this thing."

"She thinks Tess could be stirring the pot," Andrew said, watching Tess across the lawn with his daughter. They'd poured so much water onto the catnip, it'd made mud, spattering their legs. They both were laughing, delighted with their mess.

Harl was silent.

"That's what you mean if we investigate this ourselves," Andrew said. "We'd start with Tess."

"Makes sense. She knew Ike, he gave her the carriage house, she saw a skeleton her first night there. For all we know, she made up the damn thing just to see how people'd react." Harl straightened stiffly, one hand on his lower back as he yawned. Today was one of those days he looked as if he'd been shot in the line of duty, first in Vietnam, then as a cop. "Maybe she's decided something's not right with Ike's whereabouts, and this is her way of rocking the boat, smoking out what's going on. Something."

"The longer Ike stays away, the more it looks as if something's happened to him-after he took off. Or before."

"It's easy to speculate, but we have to go where the facts lead us. Have to keep an open mind, stay objective. He could have gone out for an innocent boat ride, fallen overboard and gotten eaten by sharks. Maybe he borrowed the boat from a friend without asking, the friend reports it stolen, never thinking of Ike." Harl laid his brush on top of the paint can, came over and sat on an Adirondack chair. "I can think of a million ways Ike could have taken off, gotten himself killed and we're none the wiser."

"Or ways he's taken off and just hasn't reported back to anyone in Beacon-by-the-Sea."

"Yeah. Maybe he and sister Lauren had a fallingout that she doesn't want the rest of us to know about. Or maybe," he added, staring across the lawn at Tess and Dolly, "our pretty Tess killed him herself."

"Harl."

"Oh, I've got more far-fetched scenarios than that. One involves Mars. I've been brainstorming this thing."

"I thought you didn't think while you were painting."

"I don't," he said. "This was when I wasn't working."

And it meant Harl probably hadn't slept any last night. Andrew got to his feet, could feel the air shifting, the clouds moving in from the southwest along with rain. He didn't mind. They could use the rain. He heard birds singing in the shrubs and trees, felt the ground soft under his feet, stepping in places where Tess and Dolly had splashed water.

"You let them crawl on you?" Tess groaned. "That's totally gross."

Dolly giggled. "It is not. They're only worms. I think they're cute."

"Worms are not cute, Princess Dolly. Kittens are cute."

"When can I pick them up?"

"In a few days. Your dad will let you know." Tess noticed him, smiled as she stood up, mudsplattered, hands caked with dirt. "They say you get more in touch with the earth if you don't use gardening gloves."

"What do you think?" he asked.

She laughed, her eyes crinkling at the corners, shining. "I think I need a good manicure."

Dolly jumped up, an even bigger mess than Tess. She spread out her dirty hands and came after Andrew, but he finally scooped her up and dangled her upside down by her ankles. She laughed and screeched and still managed to smear him with mud.

He plopped her back down, and she immediately charged off. "I'm going to get Harl!"

Harl headed her off before she got too close to his paint job.

"You two must be doing something right," Tess said. "She's a great kid."

"She came that way. She was a happy baby, too."

"Did it scare you-the idea of raising her on your own?"

The serious question caught him off guard, but he shrugged, pushing back the rush of emotion. Dolly. He'd do anything for her. It had been that way from the beginning. "You do what you have to do."

She seemed to understand, and he remembered that she'd lost her own mother at a young age and must have watched her father sort out his life after her death, carry on. She brushed some of the drying mud off her hands. "I should go clean up." But her light, lively eyes turned up to him, and she added, "Six-year-olds scare the hell out of me, more so maybe than missing skeletons and strange noises in the dark."

"I don't think so. I just think you're out of your comfort zone with kids.You can't let them scare you."

"I'm not afraid of them. It's myself. Saying the wrong thing that ends up sending them into therapy or an opium den-or worse."

"That's the trick, isn't it? To teach them that they are responsible for their choices, not their parents, not their teachers, their friends."

"Yes, but there are things we adults can do to totally screw up a kid's life. Like beat them to a bloody pulp, come home in a drunken stupor-"

"Die on them?"

His voice was soft, as soft as he could make it, but her mouth snapped shut. She took in a quick breath. "I can remember my mother sitting on the rocks not far from here, wrapped in a blanket while she watched me play. I think, somehow, I knew it wasn't her fault she was abandoning me. Kids can figure that out."

"Hang around Dolly a while. You'll see that kids can figure out most things. They know the difference between someone who genuinely cares and is doing their best, and someone who's pretending, going through the motions."

She sighed. "I'm not good at faking it."

He smiled, flicking a hunk of dried mud off her long, slender fingers. "I know."

"Andrew, yesterday-it was just a weird set of circumstances. We were operating outside our comfort zones." She spoke in a low voice, serious, but trying to apologize, he felt, for something she didn't regret. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about what I saw."

"Do you want to go on as if we didn't-"

"Yes."

"Okay. Go ahead."

She frowned. "Not just me. You, too. It won't do any good if I'm the only one who pretends it didn't happen."

He'd started off toward the house, knowing he hadn't responded the way she'd expected. He'd never been one to operate off someone else's script. He was the antithesis of the Granthams' graciousness and easy charisma. No good at it. Felt phony. He was almost as bad as Harl at cocktail parties, remembering one at the Grantham house when Joanna was alive. She could do small talk, said it was a skill he could learn, like fishing or building a house. She'd wandered through the spacious rooms, smiling, playing her role as Richard Montague's trusted assistant. He was going to the Pentagon now, married to Lauren Grantham. Her brother was off somewhere. And Joanna was dead.

"Andrew?"

He was ten paces away from her, but turned, saw her expression. She wasn't panicked. She was-in-trigued, he thought. He moved closer. "I look life square in the eye," he said. "It's the only way I can operate. I have no regrets about yesterday." Then he added, "Except one."

"And that would be?"

Her eyes were gleaming, excited, no sign she'd ever had any intention of pretending nothing had happened between them. Repressing it, maybe. Or trying to. He noticed the shape of her mouth, its slight tilt at the corners. He smiled. "I shouldn't have made up the guest-room bed."