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“It’s pure madness, is what it is.” He had to shout over the sound of at least three power saws and three or four hammers.
“Come on upstairs, it’s quieter there.” She slipped past him and then hugged the staircase wall to avoid falling through the space left by the missing posts. Dante sighed and trudged up behind her.
She walked into the back bedroom, held the door until Paul and Dante had cleared it, then shut it firmly against the noise. March had turned cool even during the day, and the caulking between the sleeping-porch windows and this bedroom left much to be desired.
“You’re going to freeze in that shirt,” she said practically, and perched her bottom on the nearest windowsill. “You still planning on staying here at night?”
He ran his hand over his forehead. “At this point, I have no idea. I’ve checked out of my motel, but I’m sure they’d take me back.”
“Work quits about five, so if you can stand the chill and the possibility of a cold shower—and if you don’t mind the occasional ghost—I don’t see why you shouldn’t stay here. Just don’t try cooking on that stove.”
“Buddy warned me about that.” He glanced at her. “What ghosts?”
“All old Southern mansions have ghosts.” She laughed. “Let’s see.” She began to tick off on her fingers. “There’s Deirdre Delaney who died in the last really big yellow-fever epidemic. She’s supposed to sit on the bottom step and cry.” She lifted a second finger. “Then there’s Paul Adam—the son of the man who built the house. It’s very confusing that every generation names the first son Paul. Fortunately each generation has a middle name starting with the next letter of the alphabet. That’s the only way to tell them apart.”
“So Trey’s real name is?”
“Paul Edward. He prefers Trey. Anyway, Paul Barrett is supposed to clank chains like Morley because he was such a nasty old miser in life.”
“People have actually seen these ghosts?”
“To hear them tell it.”
“Are those all the ghosts?”
“Not by a long shot. Let’s see. Great-uncle Conrad’s son David—he was actually Paul David, but nobody ever called him that.” She must have caught his expression because she said, “Hey, are you okay? I don’t really believe in ghosts, you know.”
“I’m not upset. Tell me about your uncle David.”
“My gram could tell you more. He died when I was pretty young, so I’m not certain how much I really remember and how much comes from Gram. I do remember that he was the sweetest, gentlest, saddest man I ever knew, when he was sober, that is. Toward the end of his life he wasn’t sober very often.”
Paul had no desire to hear about what a sweet, gentle man his father had been. He would have preferred the kind of ogre he’d dreamed of for years. He fought to keep his breathing even and his fingers from tightening into fists.
“So why would he haunt this place?” Because he killed somebody here, Paul answered his own question silently.
“He wanted to be a painter and live in Paris, but of course that wasn’t possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because the family needed him,” Ann said as though it was the most obvious reason in the world. “When his daddy had a heart attack, he called Uncle David home. He never went back to Paris. I think that’s why he was sad. And probably why he drank like a fish and rode like a madman.”
“Rode what?”
“Horses, of course. The Delaneys have always been masters of the local hunt. I can remember my first few hunts when I was still riding my pony. I was certain the sweet old uncle David I knew couldn’t possibly be the crazy man in the pink coat flying over the fields screaming like a banshee. Not that I knew what a banshee was at the time, of course.”
This was more like it. “So he liked blood sports, did he?”
Ann laughed at him. “Foxhunting the way we do it down here is not a blood sport. We never ever kill anything—well, not foxes or coyotes, at any rate. We don’t have such a great track record with people.”
Paul struggled to remain calm. “What…what do you mean?”
Ann laughed again. “I’m joking.”
Paul nodded. “But this Uncle David chased innocent foxes?”
“Sure. But the foxes seem to enjoy it. They actually sit out in the fields and wait for hounds. I swear they can tell when it’s Wednesday or Saturday. I’ve hunted since I was five years old and I have never seen a drop of blood drawn from any animal we chased. When the foxes get tired, they go to ground and leave hounds baying and frustrated. And of course the coyotes can outrun hounds any time they feel like it. It’s a big game and an excuse to go yee-hawing over the fields on a horse. Do you ride? You can come along in second field if you’d like.”
“What’s second field?”
“The old fogeys’ field. A nice quiet trail ride with no fences to jump and no pressure. We also have carriages that follow along sometimes. You can ride in one of them if you like. We hunt until the farmers put the crops in.”
“I’ve never been on a horse in my life and don’t plan to start now, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.”
“We’ve gotten rather far afield from your uncle David.”
“I thought we’d finished with him.”
“And why he’s a ghost.”
“He’s not, of course. But if there were ghosts, he’d be a good candidate. So sad in life. As though he searched for something he never found.” She shook her head. “Then if you want a tough ghost, there’s Aunt Maribelle, his mother. If she turned ghost, you’d know about it for sure. In life, there was never anything shy about Aunt Maribelle. So as a ghost I’m sure if she wanted you out of here, she’d find a way to boot your behind down the front steps.”
“Let’s hope she doesn’t want me out.”
“Probably happy to have you.” She checked her watch. “Oops. Buddy’ll kill me if I don’t get back to work.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve covered the mural in the dining room so it won’t collect any more dust, and I’ve started stripping the overmantel in the music room. The goo should be just about ready to remove. Want to see what’s under the layers?”
“Certainly.”
“Okay. Come on.”
As he followed her down the stairs, he asked, “Do you know what sort of chandelier hung up there?” He pointed to the elaborate boss surrounding the hanging lightbulb.
“Sure. A big old brass thing that originally used gas—the first house in Rossiter to have it, by the way.”
“You wouldn’t know who bought it, would you?”
“No clue, but if I know Trey Delaney, he’s got meticulous records on every purchase from the estate sale, even piddly little stuff like the things I bought.”
Excellent. The perfect entrée to introduce himself to Trey Delaney.
He watched Ann’s heavily gloved hands meticulously remove layers of black varnish from the relief on the over-mantel. She used what looked like dental instruments to get into the cracks and crevices.
He was definitely in the way.
Even Buddy in his trips from basement to Dumpster hardly did more than nod at him. He finally sat on the fourth step of the staircase and merely watched.
He’d about decided to leave when a tall, slim woman in jeans, cowboy boots and a turtleneck sweater strode in the front door. Her hair was short and snow-white, her face nut-brown with crinkles at the edge of her eyes. One glance at her hands told him she must be in her sixties, but she moved like a teenager.
“Hey,” she said as she came forward and extended her hand. “You must be Mr. Bouvet. I’m Sarah Pulliam. I’m a terrible busybody. Couldn’t stay away any longer. Had to see what was happening to the old place.”
Her handshake was brief but firm.
She glanced around at the organized chaos and then at him. “Welcome to Rossiter, although why in God’s green earth you’d want to move to a little town like this is more than I can see.” Without waiting for his answer, she strode off through the living room. “You tore down those godawful drapes, thank God. I told Maribelle when she hung them that they were heavy enough to suffocate any small child that got caught up in them. Ugly, to boot. For a woman with strong tastes, Maribelle never did take much to color in her decorating.”
He trailed this dynamo without speaking. He had no idea who she was, but she obviously knew the Delaneys well. He had no intention of interrupting the flow of her talk.
“There you are, Ann,” she said. “Goodness, I had no idea that was golden oak.”
“Neither did anybody else until I started stripping it.” Ann smiled at the woman who offered a cheek to be kissed. “I guess you introduced yourself, didn’t you?”
“Sure did.”
“Did you tell him who you were?”
“Huh?”
“Paul, this is my grandmother, Sarah Pulliam. She and Maribelle and Addy were sisters.”
“I was the youngest and the only one who wasn’t half-crazy,” Sara said with a touch of smugness.
“Crazy how?” Paul asked. Maybe his father’s gene pool had been tainted by schizophrenia or manic depression.
“Maribelle had a terrible temper, but she managed to get what she wanted when she wanted it. I suppose that’s not really crazy, except that she had tunnel vision about her own needs. And poor Addy probably didn’t start out crazy, but she sure wound up that way. Toward the end Esther—the woman who looked after her—said she used to wander around in her nightgown wringing her hands like Lady MacBeth and mumbling stuff that made no sense whatsoever.” Sarah shook her head sadly. “She had every reason in this world to hate Maribelle, but they still managed to live in the same house together, God knows how.”
“And did you like them?” In New Jersey, Paul would never have considered asking a bald question like that. But these people seemed to delight in a new audience to tell a good story to.
Ann gave him a sharp glance, but if Sarah noticed the rudeness of the question, it certainly didn’t bother her.
“Actually, I was devoted to Addy. Only men loved Maribelle. Women saw through her. Men never catch on to that sort of selfishness and greed.”
“Sarah, where’d you come from?” Wiping the perspiration from his face with a white towel that said Golf and Country Club on it, Buddy Jenkins walked into the library and came over to kiss Sarah’s cheek.
“Had to pick up some laying mash for the chickens, so I thought I’d stop by, maybe take you all to lunch. How about it, Mr. Bouvet? You eaten at the Wolf River Café yet?”
“Indeed I have. Thank you, Mrs. Pulliam, but I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“Intrude? Buying this house sort of makes you a member of the Delaney clan—which we sort of are. You look like you could use a good country fried steak.”
He allowed himself to be persuaded. This woman was a fount of information. He prayed he could keep her talking.
AT LUNCH Paul couldn’t steer the conversation back to Paul Delaney, Sr., without seeming too nosy even for these people. He contented himself with listening to Sarah banter with Buddy and her granddaughter.
He had never been around a family whose generations kidded and laughed together. His tante had been a strict disciplinarian who spoke formally always. He’d never seen her smile.
For a man who had done very little since morning, he felt awfully tired. Not physical exhaustion, but the weariness that came from always being on the alert for some tidbit of information about this family of his, about his father.
And from being on guard against revealing that he knew or cared more than he should about the Delaneys. One of his friends from the Air Force Academy, Jack Sabrinski, who had grown up speaking Serbo-Croat and Bulgarian with equal facility in English, had done some spy missions. He told Paul that the two months he spent spying in Bosnia took more out of him than five years of a bad marriage and a nasty divorce.
Paul could believe him. Since meeting Ann last night, another element had been added to the mix. Until yesterday these people had been strangers without faces, without personalities. Faceless entities he felt justified in using.
Now they were real to him. Ann especially. She seemed to be completely vulnerable and open. The perfect mark for a con man, which was what he was.
As he and Buddy stood by the counter waiting to pay their bills—they’d refused to allow Mrs. Pulliam to pick up the check—he heard Sarah’s voice behind him.
“Hey, come meet the new owner.”
Paul turned as Sarah slipped her arm under that of a man close to Paul’s size and weight, but with hazel eyes and a shock of blond hair already bleached nearly white by the sun. He wore immaculate chinos that hadn’t come from a discount store, an equally immaculate and expensive plaid shirt, and work boots that were polished to a high shine. Paul glanced at the man’s hand as he took it.
Manicured fingernails.
“Trey, honey, this is Mr. Paul Bouvet who is redoing your grandmother’s house. Paul, say hello to Trey Delaney.”
“Thought I’d see you when you closed on the house, but I had to be out of town,” Trey said. “Glad to meet you at last.”
Paul expected to feel a shock of electricity between them when he touched the man’s hand. “Nice to meet you.” He smiled, but his eyes searched for features he could recognize from the only picture he had of his father. A second later he wondered whether anyone looking at him and Trey could see any resemblance.
“My real name is Paul Edward Delaney, but nobody ever calls me anything but Trey.”
The picture of Paul’s father had been taken with his mother in Paris when his father was no more than twenty-five. It wasn’t a very good one, either, and had begun to fade. Paul was now thirty-five, which made Trey thirty-three.
Trey had their father’s eyes and light hair and skin, already roughened by days in the sun.
Paul had inherited his mother’s dark eyes and hair, but for anyone who looked closely, the resemblance was noticeable. Paul decided that it would be better if he kept his meetings with Trey as private as possible and away from the knowledgeable eyes of someone like Ann, who must be used to analyzing faces for her restoration work.
Only Paul knew that they were half brothers, one raised as a wealthy planter’s son in west Tennessee, one raised by a plumber uncle and a French aunt who baked bread in Queens, New York. He intended to keep it that way for as long as possible.
To everyone around them, it was a casual introduction in a small-town café. Nothing special.
“Glad you’re bringing the old place to life,” Trey said, “though Lord knows why you’d want to. Sue-sue—she’s my wife—and I thought we’d never unload that monstrosity. Oops. Better keep my mouth shut.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t want to live there yourself.”
Sarah laughed. Trey laughed. Ann snickered.
“Aunt Sarah,” Trey said, “can’t you just see Sue-sue living in a house with itty-bitty closets and no whirlpool? No, Mr. Bouvet. You’re welcome to it. Too much ancestor worship around this town, anyway, and a damn sight too much in my family. Doesn’t matter who you came from, just what you do on your own, am I right, Annie?”
“It helps if you start by inheriting a bunch of land, a few million dollars and a couple of thousand head of cattle.”
“Can’t make a dime farming, isn’t that right, Aunt Sarah?” Trey turned to Paul. “You ever hear the one about the farmer who won the ten-million-dollar lottery? When they asked him what he was going to do with it, he said, ‘I guess I’ll just keep farming till it’s gone.’” He laughed. A little too loud, a little too long.
Paul smiled back.
“Well, y’all, I got to get my nose back to the grindstone.” Trey waved over his shoulder and walked past them out the restaurant toward the square.
