“Well, I see two choices,” Juliet said. “We can back the chair down the stairs—”

  “And the other choice?”

  “Esteban gives you a piggyback ride and I carry the chair.”

  “And all this haste downward is so that I can see the body in situ?” Raphael guessed.

  “Well … yes. You know Dolph and might notice something that I’ve missed. Murder is not my area of expertise. I’m a linguist.”

  “Esteban?” Raphael asked. Esteban seemed recovered from his climb but he had been shot in the chest last summer.

  “Mine is the strength of ten because my heart is pure. And we’ll rest along the way if need be.”

  “Very well, though this does nothing for my dignity.”

  “I promise not to snigger,” Juliet added with a smile of gratitude. “And the reporter is gone.”

  It took ten minutes, but they beat the forensic team by a minute and a half. By the time they rejoined Manoogin and the shaken Sandra who was huddled in one of her iron chairs, they were all flushed enough to lend verisimilitude to the story about the tower being very hot.

  Juliet distracted the lieutenant while Raphael and Esteban looked around.

  “It’s a shame that we had to bring Raphael down because it would have been very interesting to see the retrieval of the.…” She stopped, looking at Sandra. The poor woman probably didn’t need to hear about another body in the castle. “Maybe I should take her out for a bit of fresh air.”

  Manoogin studied Juliet for a moment and then nodded. Apparently he felt he could trust her with the potential witness.

  Juliet knelt down by Sandra’s chair. Her knees protested after their long climb, but she made herself refrain from grimacing or grunting. Juliet was not comfortable with casual hugging. She had a strong sense of personal space and didn’t like to violate it in others. But at that moment Sandra had no personal borders. Empathy, probably with some kind of touching, was required. Juliet opted for touching her arm.

  “Sandra, would you like to go sit outside with Mr. James, Esteban, and me? There are some nice tables in the shade and we could have some cool water.”

  “I.…” She reached for her hair as though to smooth it and then stopped. Juliet had noticed this habit of unfinished gestures before. It was as if Sandra wanted to talk with her hands but had been told not to fidget.

  “Lieutenant?” a voice called from the great hall. The forensic team had arrived. They were laughing and joking so Juliet was pretty sure that they had not been warned about the second body.

  “In here.”

  Two men came into the room. They had not changed into their jumpsuits and latex gloves yet. They looked enough like Laurel and Hardy for Juliet to blink. She hadn’t seen a green plaid suit in decades.

  “I thought you said it was a skeleton up a chimney?” Laurel said, staring at Dolph.

  “There’s one of those too. I want to start with this one though. He’s about a hundred years less dead and we might actually get some evidence at this scene.”

  “You called the ME?” Hardy asked. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “Yeah, he’s on the way. Start processing the scene without him. Just leave the body be for now.”

  Juliet turned back to Sandra when a cold hand touched her arm.

  “I would like to go outside now.” The woman’s face had no color in it. Juliet hoped she wouldn’t faint.

  “Okay.” Juliet’s knees popped on her way back up. “Lieutenant, we’re going to get out of your hair. There are some picnic tables on the east side of the castle. We’ll be out there when you need us.”

  Manoogin nodded, taking in Sandra’s pallor and Juliet’s reluctant arm around her waist. Juliet had the funny feeling that something about this gesture met with his approval.

  Chapter 4

  Juliet somehow found herself giving Lieutenant Manoogin a tour of the nearly empty castle though she was barely qualified for the job. Esteban and Raphael were gone, as was everyone except the security guard who claimed he had left his post when Dolph, or someone pretending to be Dolph—the connection on the house phone was bad—called the gatehouse and told him that there was a trespasser in the trees by the north fence line. The guard said that though he had left at once to investigate, he hadn’t seen anyone and it was impossible to tell if anybody had been there because the ground was blanketed with spongy pine needles and thick with shrubs.

  Juliet had wanted to talk with her friends about what they had seen in the dining room and the conclusions they had drawn, but there hadn’t been time before Manoogin thoughtfully sent them away.

  They started the tour in the kitchen which looked a bit like something out of a haunted house, but which at least had functional appliances, being part of the modern add-on which was already wired for electricity. One wall was a large fireplace with artificially blackened brick. It hadn’t been there a week ago. In addition to the electric fire, it had an actual wood stove for doing pizza and bread and several wall niches for storing kindling and larger logs. There were blackened pots hanging overhead nestled among bundles of dried herbs and ropes of onion and garlic. There were hooks, too, where one could hang hams or sausages, provided one had no concerns about hygiene. Only the smell was wrong and it broke the illusion of an ancient country kitchen. There was no odor from the ash in the fire, no lingering breakfast smells of toast and coffee. For the time being, the room was nothing but a stage set.

  The one thing Juliet liked was the old coal stove which had been left in place and repurposed as an herb garden. Rosemary and marjoram sprouted out of old burners. There were also grow lights and a built-in mister.

  “Who did this room? Which artist?”

  Juliet thought it wise of Manoogin to try to make sense of his suspects through their art.

  “A Broadway set designer named Antonia Warren. I’m not sure which decorator she works with. Most of the designers are done now or are keeping away while the heavy equipment is here since there isn’t much parking and the noise is unpleasant.”

  Manoogin shook his head at the room either in admiration or disbelief. Or perhaps both.

  As they walked through the castle, Juliet could see him pondering the sanity of the recruited artists, who were almost all women. It was understandable. A lot of the rooms were very strange and a little too avant-garde for the general public.

  Trimming the castle was certainly a tricky proposition. There was a real danger that if decorated in period furnishings the place would appear embalmed, more a museum than a home. But in an effort to break with tradition they had achieved the weird effect of having dressed up the architectural corpse in borrowed and ill-fitting clothing. The rooms weren’t exciting, just visually jarring. That was partly because a lot of the furniture had been pillaged from attics and basements and Frankensteined into new and vaguely gothic or faux medieval pieces that were more eye-catching than attractive or even functional. Budgets were tight so it was bound to have happened, though it may have been better had the various artists consulted one another and tried for a cohesive theme.

  “Any men working on this project?” he asked after she had named two other female artists.

  “Do you mean artists?” Juliet asked. “One, Miguelito Cavalli. He hasn’t arrived yet, I don’t think. He is doing the solarium. It’s all frosted glass and faux crystals.”

  “Which hasn’t been installed yet?”

  “Not yet. Some of the interior decorators are male, though not many. Dolph’s secretary, Myra Wicks, can get you a list.”

  They passed the library and paused involuntarily. The rooms had been searched by the police, who had eventually arrived en force to help with the search, but Juliet still found herself peering into the shadows for undiscovered threats and danger.

  There were plenty of shadows in the library though no danger except for outraged taste. The offenses began with an anachronistic suit of armor that had been repurposed as a floor lamp, its helmet replaced with a swagged and fringed Victorian lampshade which made one think about a drunken knight running loose in a bordello. The room was also full of animal parts, mostly skins and tusks and horned heads culled from five continents. It seemed more a natural history museum than a place for reading or smoking cigars with a brandy. The old books were quite attractive being bound in rich leather, but they were too fragile to handle, shattering when pried open. It was another room for show and not for living in and the vandalism of traditional styles left both of them blinking.

  “Holly O’Bannon,” Juliet answered without prompting, seeing Manoogin staring at the armor lamp. “She is known for her whimsical children’s illustrations. She also designed a float for the Rose Parade last year.”

  “And Raphael James? What room is he working on?” He spoke with a professional dispassion which did not in any way indicate disinterest.

  “He isn’t. This isn’t his thing. He’s more about cathedrals and palaces. Dolph wanted him to paint a mural in the dining room, but he is really here to advise me.”

  “About the yoga room?”

  “Yes.” Manoogin looked down at her though she had answered without hesitation. He really was very perceptive. “And to figure out why the room was … bothering me. You’ve seen it now. Yes, it’s dark and the acoustics are weird and I was feeling.…”

  “Haunted?” There was no judgment in his voice. Had he felt something too?

  “No, not exactly. Creeped out though—maybe because I smelled something and it bothered my subconscious? In any event, I wanted that damned fireplace gone. Raphael knows the British owner and also Dolph Kingman so it seemed best to enlist his aid when Dolph started dragging his feet.”

  They started up the back stairs that had been used by servants and other staff. It was dark and narrow and they couldn’t walk two abreast. The stone steps muffled their tread.

  Juliet had the feeling that he was walking her to a particular location and not exploring randomly.

  “And you were certain he would side with you?”

  “Of course. Raphael has exquisite taste and the add-on fireplace is an out-of-period aesthetic abomination.”

  “I see. Well, I think we have taken care of that problem for you.” He sounded amused. “These are all bedrooms up here in this wing?”

  “Yes, with baths in between at two-room intervals. The bathrooms are almost all new.”

  “So, bed, bed, bath?”

  “Yes. These are guest rooms. The master suite is elsewhere.”

  “You know, and it is probably just my ignorance, but this place doesn’t strike me as being anyone’s home. It’s more like a hotel, or one of those historic homes they have on tours of the Old South.”

  Juliet stepped into the first bath. Wisely, no effort had been made to hide the modern appliances. If there was one place where people appreciated things being out in the open and easily accessible, it was the bathroom.

  The room was beautiful, with a peacock mosaic of broken glass covering the wall with the small window. A quick touch with her finger assured Juliet that it was real broken bottles and that the edges were still sharp, something that seemed quite dangerous in a room where there was water and condensation. How had this gotten past the insurance company? Perhaps they hadn’t seen it yet. Taking it down would be a huge bother.

  “That’s actual broken glass?” Manoogin sounded perturbed.

  “Yes. I can’t imagine that the insurance company will let that stay up. Maybe she means to cover it with a sheet of glass.” They backed out of the bathroom. “As for the place feeling institutional, that’s partly because of the size, but it was a hospital and then a reform school and long ago probably a barracks for medieval soldiers and an army of servants. A hotel would be a step up the institutional ladder. This is the first bedroom. Let’s see how bad it really is.”

  The antique latch depressed under Juliet’s hand as she pushed the first bedroom door wide. The chamber was decorated in a theatrical version of the Arabian Nights—assuming that this was the all-purple satin and velvet version of Arabian splendor.

  Juliet didn’t like it, though it would have appealed to an eight-year-old girl with princess fantasies. The proportions and color were wrong for a smallish, dark chamber that resembled a monk’s cell that was being used for textile storage.

  She was also noticing something else in a lot of the rooms. She assumed that the designers and artists wanted to make the castle feel livable, but going with modern looks was all wrong for the architecture. Excepting the purple bedroom, the rooms were also failing in more subtle ways. Castles were hung with tapestries, had rushes (or rugs) on the floor, and were filled with large furniture for reasons other than pure aesthetics. The tapestries and rugs were there to absorb the uncomfortable echoes and drafts that filled up the dark spaces when no one else was there, spaces which made one feel distinctly unwelcome. The artists weren’t thinking big enough. All the furnishings were scaled for modern houses.

  “Clara Moore is the artist. She works in textile arts.”

  Manoogin made a note.

  “These artists, they’re pretty well off?”

  “You are considering financial motives in this case?” Juliet asked. “I can’t answer for all of them. Generally, the rewards of an artist’s career are more spiritual than financial. Unless you are Raphael James or Esteban Rodriguez.”

  “People pay a lot for puppets?” Manoogin was startled.

  “His puppets, yes.”

  Manoogin was silent as he considered what to ask next.

  “I gather you didn’t care much for the deceased.”

  “Not much.” Juliet closed the door and went to the next one. There was no need to open it since the rooms had been searched for hiding suspects, but she was curious about what the other artists were doing and most of the designers were being secretive about their projects.

  “Would you mind sharing why?”

  “There were three reasons. One socio-economic, one aesthetic, and one … intuitive.”

  “Please begin anywhere.” He sounded amused.

  “Dolph was like a cheap port wine. Rich, full bodied, and sweet at first taste. For those with no palette he probably remained acceptable company.”

  “But you prefer a better vintage?” the lieutenant asked, entering into the metaphor.

  “Oh yes. But that wasn’t the main problem. He also had grabby hands. It’s not chance that almost all the artists on this project are young and female. I am, obviously, an exception.”

  “So he had a thing for young women?”

  “After a fashion. I think it was a lot about exercising power and only a little about genuine sexual attraction. I haven’t actually encountered this type in a couple of decades—a sort of Hugh Hefner wannabe.” Manoogin raised a brow. “That would be trouble enough in itself, but I came to see that Dolph was a sexist who felt outraged when he was rejected. Because everyone knows that the function of all women everywhere is to be flattered when a man of his stature bothers to proposition them. He could cover up this retrograde belief when he had to. And Dolph could be very charming with women he respected because of their fame or relatives or whatever else lent them that certain useful glow, but his essential nature shone through when he thought the person he was dealing with was his social inferior. Some women object to this.”

  “I see.”

  Juliet looked in the next room. The walls had been papered in bright scraps of tapestry and then glazed. There was a chandelier with garish prisms of glass instead of the standard crystals. It reminded her of an elaborate origami which was interesting but not especially restful. Perhaps it would be better when the furniture was brought in. “He also had shifty eyes.”

  “I see. That’s damning. But you know, physiognomy is no longer in fashion in most California police departments,” Manoogin said apologetically.

  “No profiling by eye shape?” Juliet asked lightly, closing the door without entering. She began to question her idea about apothecary jars in the meditation room.

  “Not officially.”

  “Okay, forget the eyes being shifty. But I would still take a look at the books and see how finances for this project were shaping up. It’s easy to point at his arrogance and libido, but I usually like money as a motive better. Do you have a good forensic accountant?”

  “So I’m told.”

  “Good. You’ll probably need one if you have to do any deep digging. It might do to check in with the IRS. They have gotten watchful about certain kinds of charities. Maybe they’ll have something. Also—and I am just thinking out loud here—by the time I came onboard the project Dolph was down to pinching pennies. Of course some rooms in the castle needed larger budgets. The kitchen and gymnasium, for example. There were all the appliances that needed new wiring and the pool had to be repaired and retiled which ran into some real expenses because the damage wasn’t merely cosmetic. And remodels have this bad habit of acquiring cost overruns. It’s inevitable. But from conversations I overheard among the artists and designers, I gathered that Dolph had a bad habit of promising funds to one person and then reapportioning them as his next conquest came along. No one believed stories about settling foundations eating up the budget. People mostly assumed that what his right face gaveth, his left face would then taketh away when someone prettier came along.

  “Lastly, and I hate to bring this up since I don’t think it matters, but there was a carpenter on the project—DeeDee someone—who had a run-in with Dolph a couple days ago and had to repulse him bodily.”

  She did no more than glance in a bedroom that was supposed to be baroque but had crossed the line into bordello.

  “He touched her physically? Here, on the job, with a witness?” Manoogin wasn’t looking at the rooms anymore either. Perhaps he had reached his limit of bad taste.

  “Like I said, he had grabby hands, and she was working class. And he didn’t know that I was there.” Juliet shook her head. “I doubt she would have reported the incident. Women in the trades have a hard time being taken seriously so they tend to keep quiet about things like that, especially if she didn’t know there was someone to back up her story. Anyhow, she left the project that day and hasn’t been back. That I know of.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11