Читать книгу Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody - Barbara Ross - Страница 11

Chapter Four

Tuesday, August 7

At eight-thirty the next morning, Jane called Paul Peavey and told him she was in. He sounded pleasantly surprised. She packed a suitcase; put together a canvas shopping bag full of staples; loaded her laptop, book, and assorted paraphernalia into another tote bag; and stopped the newspapers.

When she drove up, Walden Spring looked as serene as it had on the website. It was hard to imagine yesterday’s melee had been real.

The guest unit turned out to be a Hawthorne. It was on the fourth floor in the first building, the one attached to the archway and Peavey’s office. The balcony faced the quad—not the best view, but Jane could also see the golf course if she looked over the balcony’s left side.

Regina Campbell led the way with the same chattering narrative as the day before. She gave Jane a keycard. “This will open your apartment, as well as your foyer downstairs and the other residential foyers. If you decide to buy, then you’d get one with your photo on it, which will be your Walden Spring ID card.”

Jane walked her to the door. They stood in the hallway outside the apartment.

“Who else lives here?” Jane gestured to the three other doors that surrounded the elevator bank.

“Those units are empty,” Regina answered. “Some of our last inventory. It’s my job to sell them.”

“Do the problems in the community make it difficult to sell the units? ” Jane asked.

Regina’s normally animated face went still. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She left without saying good-bye.

Jane explored the apartment, examining the small appliances the real estate company had left there for the convenience of prospective buyers. She did the bits of unpacking she needed to do—clothes in the beautifully designed closet; coffee in the cupboard; milk, butter, and bread in the big, stainless steel refrigerator. At ten o’clock Jane went out on her balcony and looked at the green quadrangle below. Morning activities were about to begin. People scurried across the quad—or progressed at whatever pace their bodies allowed. She headed for the art room.

* * *

Evangeline opened the window in the art room as Jane arrived. The group in the room was even more heavily female than the day before. In fact, Maurice was the only man. “Such a lovely day,” Evangeline announced. “Landscapes?”

The women all made positive noises, but Maurice sighed heavily. “Jeez, not again.” They packed up their supplies and easels in a kind of kit and grabbed the folded campstools that were lined up along the wall.

“Welcome back, Jane,” Evangeline said. She was dressed like a gypsy—colorful skirt, long silver earrings, headscarf. “I wasn’t sure you’d return after yesterday.”

“Glutton for punishment,” Maurice mumbled.

Jane explained she was staying in the guest unit while she made her decision.

“Wonderful. Do you have your own art supplies? We have loaners.” Evangeline fixed her up with a kit containing paints, palette, brushes, canvas, and a folding easel. Jane grabbed a campstool and lined up with the rest. Evangeline took her place in the front of the line.

“Where to?” one of the women asked.

“The fifth hole is stunning this time of day,” Evangeline answered.

Evangeline led the way, walking swiftly on sure feet. The group stuck to the golf cart path. The terrain was hilly, and Jane wondered why Evangeline had picked a spot so far away. She slowed down and waited for a quite elderly lady as they climbed the last hill. Jane took the woman’s campstool and artist kit and added them to her own.

“Thank you, dear,” the old woman boomed. “I’m Ethel.” She was tiny, with the most improbably deep bullfrog voice. Even allowing for age, she could never have been very big. Her voice had a unique quality, not the rasp of whiskey and cigarettes but the natural timbre of a much larger person.

“I’m Jane.”

“Can you guess how old I am, Jane?”

At what age did people begin asking this question? There was only peril in the answer, whether one guessed too old or too young.

Fortunately, Ethel answered without waiting for Jane. “Ninety-one.”

They came over the top of the rise, where the rest of the artists were setting up. “Well,” Ethel said with satisfaction, “always a beautiful view.”

It was, indeed, a gorgeous spot. The hill rolled down to an egg-shaped green. A charming bridge crossed a water hazard. Beyond that was a thin line of trees and then the fairway for another hole. A little cottage lay nestled, surrounded by bushes, on the far side of the fairway. The wet summer had worked its magic and everything was a different, brilliant shade of green.

But that wasn’t the view the artists were focused on.

Below them, the grounds crew had arrived in a cart towing a ride-on mower. They were the same four who had broken up the food fight in the cafeteria the day before. They heaved themselves from the cart and went about their business, unloading the mower, grabbing edgers and hedge trimmers. Three of the four took off their shirts. The gasp from the artist group was audible.

“Hey, Karl,” Evangeline yelled.

The fourth man waved back. “Hi, Mrs. Murray!” Then he too removed his shirt, turned around, and dropped it in the golf cart.

“My God.” Jane hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Karl was a magnificent specimen of a man. His body tapered from his broad shoulders through his strong back to his trim waist and well-muscled thighs. He bent over and picked something up off the ground.

Beside her, Ethel croaked happily. “A girl can dream, can’t she?”

“Sheesh.” Maurice had set up next to Evangeline. He was the only one who had any paint on his canvas. Despite the heat, he still had on his uniform of black blazer and black beret.

Jane placed her easel next to Evangeline on the other side.

“That’s Karl Flagler,” Evangeline explained. “He’s the head groundskeeper. He poses for our life drawing classes sometimes in the winter.”

* * *

By an hour later the grounds crew had moved on, and several foursomes had played the hole. Jane had been impressed by Karl and his crew. They were meticulous in their work, and though they joked and called out to one another, Karl let them know exactly what he wanted, and he got it from them.

By the time the crew left, most of the artists had managed to do some painting. Evangeline decreed that they’d stay another half an hour and then head back for lunch.

Jane pointed toward the bungalow across the way. “What’s that?”

“Groundskeeper’s cottage. Karl lives there.”

“It looks old.” The bungalow had weathered, silver-gray shingles and lots of white gingerbread woodwork spidering along the roofline.

“It is. Walden Spring is built on the grounds of the old Wallingford estate. This golf course was private, part of the estate grounds. The groundskeeper’s cottage is original.”

“Where’s the estate house?”

“Burned down in the 1970s. I lived less than a mile from here with my second husband then. Spectacular blaze. The old cellar hole has been filled in.” Evangeline cocked her head toward a hill behind them, beyond the long-term care facility. “But there’s still the remains of an enormous marble swimming pool, though most of the marble’s been stolen over the years for local landscaping projects. I’ll bet there are more marble walks and patios around here than any other town in Massachusetts.”

Jane pointed in the other direction. “What’s beyond the groundskeeper’s cottage?”

“A line of trees. An older housing development. Then the town. If you look carefully you can see the steeple of the Trinitarian Congregational Church. Sometimes we cut through the trees to get to town. There are paths, but they’re really only usable in the spring and fall when it’s not icy or overgrown. Peavey doesn’t like us doing it for safety reasons.”

At that moment an older woman, accompanied by a caretaker, came walking along the path from the long-term care facility. The woman was well dressed in a summer skirt and top, and her long gray hair was carefully arranged in a bun. She was attractive, with large, wide-set eyes and a distinctive upturned nose. A Kevin Bacon nose. She walked over to Evangeline’s canvas and admired it.

“Good morning, Mrs. Finnerty,” Evangeline said.

The woman stared like she didn’t have a clue who Evangeline was. She didn’t even seem to respond to her own name, but some innate politeness asserted itself. “Have we met before?” she asked.

“Indeed,” Evangeline said. “I live over in the condos. The same floor as Bill.”

Mrs. Finnerty smiled broadly. “Oh, do you know my Billy?”

“I do.”

“He’s such a good boy.”

“Yes,” Evangeline answered. “He is.”

Evangeline turned to Jane when they’d moved on. “Bill Finnerty’s wife. Such a terrible disease.”

“Terrible,” Jane agreed. “She looks so much older than Bill.”

“Yes, she does. Maybe it’s the illness,” Evangeline responded.

* * *

Eventually everyone did paint something. The route back to the clubhouse was long and hot. Jane again carried Ethel’s things and fell behind the rest of the group as she slowed to keep pace with her. As they walked, Ethel blared in her foghorn voice about a beef with a long-dead sister-in-law. Jane made sympathetic noises.

By the time they got to the clubhouse, their fellow artists had put their kits away and gone off to lunch. The sounds of clattering cutlery and the smell of underseasoned food wafted into the art room from the dining hall below. Jane told Ethel to go directly to the dining room; she’d put their things away.

As Jane exited the art room, she saw Mike Witkowski leaving the game room next door. His leather jacket was off in a concession to the heat, and instead he wore a black T-shirt over black jeans. Although Jane guessed his age at late sixties or early seventies, his arms were sinewy, muscles visible. A strong old man. He held a wooden box—larger than a cigar box, smaller than a breadbox—under his left arm. He carefully closed the door to the game room, pulled on a fob hanging from his belt that held a bunch of keys, selected one, and locked the door. Locked it? Why was the game room locked with a key and not a keycard, like everything else in Walden Spring? And why did Mike Witkowski possess a key? It seemed more appropriate for a member of the staff.

Mike caught Jane watching him and gave a wag of his eyebrows, then hurried down the stairs to the cafeteria. She followed.