Marcia Talley - The Last Refuge

Late that night, Amy came to me in my chamber. ‘Would you like me to brush your hair?’

‘Oh, yes.’ I threw back the covers, slid out of bed and sat in the chair in front of the vanity table. ‘I’d give anything for some Pantene,’ I mused as she came up behind me and started brushing the tangles out of my hair. ‘One of those itty-bitty bottles of shampoo you get in hotels. Is that too much to ask?’

‘You and me both. From the Waldorf-Astoria or Holiday Inn, wouldn’t matter. My hair is so stiff from that bar soap we made that it looks like I’m wearing a helmet. Karen says I should try rinsing it with vinegar.’

‘Phew!’ I said.

Amy brushed in silence for a while. ‘Your husband works at the Naval Academy, right?’

‘Uh huh.’ I was enjoying the gentle massage of the bristles against my scalp.

‘Drew murdered Alex, I know he did.’

‘The medical examiner determined that it was an accident, Amy.’

‘I don’t believe that any more than you do, Hannah.’

‘You’re right, I don’t. I think it’s possible that Alex broke his neck in a fall, but not very probable.’ I twisted around in my chair. ‘What is Drew’s motive, Amy?’ When I saw the expression on Amy’s face, I froze. ‘Did he know about you and Alex?’

Amy blushed. ‘Alex has been visiting my room at night. If Drew has been watching the house…’ Her voice trailed off.

‘That sounds like motive to me.’

‘So, how can we prove it?’

‘That’s the hard part,’ I said. ‘Drew is a phantom. And, according to the government, which we all know is infallible, Drew Cornell doesn’t even exist.’

The brush stopped. ‘Do you think I’m in danger?’

‘No, I don’t. Drew needs you to collect the insurance money for him. He believes you’ll join him after that happens, no matter what. You are essential to his plan.’ I waved a hand. ‘Brush!’

‘One thing I wonder about,’ I said after a bit. ‘Why didn’t Drew contact you sooner? Even third world countries have cell phones and Internet cafes.’

‘I had my cell number changed after the break-in. My email account was hacked, and my Facebook page was hijacked so badly that I couldn’t even log on. I had to set up new ones.’ The brush stopped. ‘Then I came here, so it took Drew a while to track me down. Otherwise?’ In the mirror, I saw her shrug. ‘Maybe he was afraid my phone would be tapped. Maybe he thought I was being watched and I wouldn’t act like a proper widow if I knew he was actually alive?’

‘You asked me about Paul. How can he help?’

‘He has friends in high places?’

I laughed. ‘High military places? I suppose he does. Midshipmen who Paul used to teach are now captains, and I think there’s even one vice admiral among his former students.’ My eyes locked on to hers in the reflection in the mirror. ‘I could tell Paul that Drew is alive, sure, and he could pass that information on to the Navy brass, but that wouldn’t prove anything.’

‘I don’t care. We can’t let him get away with it. I know he murdered Alex just as sure as I’m standing here brushing your hair.’

‘But you aren’t brushing,’ I reminded her gently.

‘Right.’ She began again, slowly, rhythmically. ‘I wasn’t in love with Alex,’ she reflected, ‘but he was in love with me. I told him how I felt, and he was OK with it, really. I think he thought I’d come around eventually, and he may have been right. But it was just too soon after Drew to get into another serious relationship, you know?’

‘I know. If something happened to Paul… Gosh, breaking in one husband is hard enough. I don’t understand how women like Elizabeth Taylor and Zsa-Zsa Gabor managed it. After they talk me off the railing of the high span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, I’d probably just sell up and move to a cottage in the south of France.’

‘No you wouldn’t, Hannah.’

‘No?’

‘Your daughter? The grandchildren? How about them?’

‘You have a point.’ I laughed. ‘Look, I have an idea. What we need is to snatch off his cloak of invisibility, draw Drew out. What would make him show himself?’

‘Jealousy. If Drew killed Alex, it was because he was jealous.’

‘We have to assume that Drew is still watching us,’ I said.

‘That gives me the heebie jeebies, Hannah.’

‘I’m not comfortable with it either. So, under that assumption, let’s make him jealous. Get somebody to come on to you.’

‘But that could be dangerous, especially for the object of my so-called affection.’

‘That’s where the people Paul knows might come in handy.’ I thought for a moment while Amy brushed. ‘If Drew is watching you, I’ll bet he’ll turn up at the State House ball. It’s the next time that we’ll all be outside Patriot House and it’ll be a mob scene. He could easily sneak in, just like he did at the burning of the Peggy Stewart , if we assume, like I do, that the so-called reporter Alex was talking to was actually Drew.’

‘We’ll need help, Hannah. I’m certainly not going to flirt with you !’ She laughed, genuinely amused. ‘That would push Drew over the edge for sure! SEAL’s wife throws him over for another woman.’

‘It probably wouldn’t be the first time,’ I observed ruefully. ‘OK, it’s decided. In the meantime, then, it’s business as usual. Let me get a note out to Paul. I’ll try to talk to him. See what he can do.’

‘A note to Paul? How will you arrange that?’

I put a finger to my lips. ‘Need to know, Amy. Need to know.’

‘I had to help the cook pluck a chicken today. When this is all over, I think I’m going to become a vegetarian.’

French Fry, housemaid

‘Melody,’ I said as we strolled through the rose garden one morning after breakfast, cutting flowers we planned to arrange in the vase on the entrance hall table. ‘I need you to run an errand for me.’

Melody snipped off a white damask rose and laid it gently in her basket. ‘As long as it doesn’t involve Gabe, I’ll consider it.’

‘I’m sending you to the market with Karen today. You’ll be purchasing a roast for Sunday dinner, and anything else that Karen thinks we might need.’

Melody’s face lit up. ‘I’d adore that. But, how come you aren’t going?’

‘Founding Father sent me an invitation to tea at Hammond-Harwood House this afternoon. No way I can get out of it.’ I reached into my pocket and pulled out the note I had written to Paul using a leaf I’d torn out of the little blue notebook he’d given me. I pressed the note into her hand. ‘This is for my husband. Please leave it with Kyle or with Corey at the Maryland Table concession. They may have a packet for you, too.’

‘But isn’t that, like, cheating?’ Melody asked. With a furtive glance over her shoulder at the hulk of Paca House looming behind us, she accepted the note and tucked it quickly into her own pocket, a willing accomplice.

‘Technically, it is. But I’m hoping that this will be our little secret.’ I touched her arm. ‘Thank you, Melody. And whatever is in the packet they give you? It’s yours to keep.’

Her eyes widened, she beamed. ‘Awesome.’

I cleaned up for the tea party as best I could, scrubbing my face and neck with soap and warm water, and paying particular attention to my underarms. My Savannah-born grandmother had often said, ‘Hannah, honey, horses sweat, men perspire, but women glow.’ After the fever, the exertion and the tension of the previous weeks, I had done more than glow; I sweated buckets. One of my gowns was so ripe, in fact, that I was certain it could walk out of the room and down to the laundry tub quite of its own accord.