Robert Parker - Rough Weather

“Clydesdales?” I said.

“Belgians,” he said. “In medieval times they were warhorses.”

“Big,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

Beside the carriage was a square-jawed woman in a mannish-looking white shirt and gray flannel slacks. There was a cell phone on her belt. She was too old for college by now, and she wasn’t actually so big, but there was a hint of linebacker about her, too. I wondered if Smith had a team.

“Mr. Spenser,” she said. “I’m Maggie Lane, Mrs. Bradshaw’s assistant.”

We shook hands. I introduced Susan. They shook hands. One of the horses looked over his shoulder at us without interest. Maggie Lane gestured toward the carriage.

“Please,” she said.

“Luggage?” Susan said.

“It will be delivered to your rooms,” Maggie Lane said.

For Susan, the thought that her luggage was in alien hands was nearly life-threatening. But she simply smiled and got into the carriage. Her clothes fit her well, and I admired her agility as she stepped up into the carriage. Also her backside. I followed, and Maggie Lane stepped up beside the driver.

“Except for the patrol Jeeps,” she said, “there are no cars on the island.”

“How lovely for the ambience,” Susan said.

“And the atmosphere,” Maggie Lane said.

“Good source of fertilizer, too,” I said.

Maggie Lane nodded with a smile, though I didn’t think the smile was terribly warm. The ride from the dock wasn’t steep enough to bother the big Belgians, that I could tell. It wound slowly around the rising rock, with the ocean on our right and the south coast of Massachusetts still visible on the horizon behind us, until we leveled out on the flat top of the rock where the house was, surrounded by trees and gardens, beneficiaries, no doubt, of the horses’ largesse. Such greenery hadn’t settled on top of this rock by accident, and it had not exfoliated so richly without help.

The house itself looked like it had been constructed by Cornelius Vanderbilt. It looked like someplace you could catch a sleeper train for Chicago. There were columns and friezes and arched windows twenty feet high.

“We have a small suite for you in the northeast corner of the house,” Maggie Lane said. “Not far from Mrs. Bradshaw’s private quarters.”

I sort of thought everyone’s quarters were private but decided not to raise the question.

“And the luggage?” Susan said.

“It should be there waiting for you,” Maggie Lane said. “Unpacked, and carefully hung up.”

Susan blanched slightly. But Maggie Lane was looking toward the house and didn’t notice. I knew that the thought of anyone opening Susan’s luggage and carefully hanging up her stuff was unbearable.

With her lips barely parted she said, “Oh, how lovely.”

The crushed-shell driveway gleaming white in the morning sun curved in front of the vast marble pile of a house and under a two-story porte cochere. Another young guy in a blazer and white pants, maybe an outside linebacker, came to help us from the carriage. Susan hated that. She jumped down briskly before he was able to get there. I dismounted more sedately but no less athletically. In front of us, and closer to the house, was another white Jeep with two guys in it wearing safari shirts and sunglasses and gun belts. Like the two guys at the dock, they had inconspicuous earpieces.

Maggie Lane took us in through a front door that could accommodate a family of giraffes. We stood in a foyer that would have accommodated the Serengeti Plain, at the foot of a vast curving staircase that probably went to heaven.

“Stay close,” I murmured to Susan.

We went past the staircase and down the corridor, which narrowed to maybe thirty feet behind the stairs. There was a pair of huge French doors at the far end, and the light poured in happily. On the wall were well-framed oil paintings of people who were almost certainly rich, and pleased about it. Halfway down the corridor, Maggie Lane stopped, took out some keys, and opened a door on the left.

“Here we are,” she said, and handed me two keys. “I’ll let you freshen up a little.”

She took a card from the pocket of her shirt.

“Everything should be provided for,” she said. “But if you need anything you don’t have, anything at all, call me and I’ll make it happen. The butler will be by to take your lunch order.”

I took the card. We went in. Maggie Lane closed the door behind us. We stood and looked at each other for a moment, then we explored. It took a while. It is not inaccurate to say simply that there was a living room, two bedrooms, two baths, and a kitchenette. It is also not inaccurate to say that Niagara is a waterfall. The living room was a sufficient size for basketball. A polished mahogany bar divided the living room from the kitchenette. A hall with a black-and-brown tiled floor led to a couple of bedrooms, each with its own bath. The wall of arched windows opposite the door gave us a twenty-foot-high view of the sloping lawn behind the house and, past that, of the Atlantic Ocean stretching toward Europe. The room itself was sand-colored: walls, ceiling, rugs, sofas, upholstered chairs. The wood was mahogany. The accent colors were mahogany and black.

We looked around for a while in perfect silence. When we got back to the living room, Susan turned to me.

“Sweet Jesus,” she said.

Lunch was lobster and mango salad with fresh rolls and a bottle of white Grave. Susan and I put the wine away for later. After lunch we toured the grounds, which were everything that grounds ought to be. It was a warm and pleasant day for October. We found a bench near the front of the house and sat on it and watched the guests begin to gather.

“Exactly what is this event,” Susan said. “You’ve never said.”

“You never asked.”

“I was just so thrilled you invited me,” Susan said. “I was nearly speechless.”

“Understandable,” I said. “The central event is the marriage of Heidi Bradshaw’s daughter, Adelaide, to a guy named Maurice Lessard, whose family owns a pharmaceutical company.”

“ Adelaide?” Susan said.

“Ever-loving Adelaide,” I said.

“How old?” Susan said.

“Twenty-two, I think.”

“Puts Heidi in her forties, then,” Susan said.

“I’d guess,” I said.

Heidi Bradshaw came across the lawn at full stride.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she said, “not to have been here to greet you when you arrived.”

“Busy time,” I said, and introduced Susan.

“I’m thrilled, Miss Silverman,” Heidi said. “I’ve heard the big boy here speak very well of you.”

“My pleasure,” Susan said.

Susan was perfectly pleasant, but I could hear the chill.

“Actually,” I said. “It’s Dr. Silverman.”

“Really?” Heidi said to Susan. “A medical doctor.”

“I’m a psychotherapist,” Susan said. “But please, call me Susan.”

“Therapist? How fascinating. Is it fun?”

“Not always,” Susan said.

“Well, I bet it’s useful for managing the stud, here,” Heidi said, and shared an intimate smile with me.

“Sadly, I’m not trained in adolescent psychology,” Susan said.

“Oh, you’re so funny,” Heidi said. “Omigod, there’s Leopold.”

She turned from us and rushed into the arms of a darkly tanned gentleman with white hair, who might have been a famous conductor, as he was stepping from the carriage.

“Did we find her annoying?” I said to Susan.

“We did.”

“Was it the ‘Miss Silverman’ that did it?” I said.

“You seemed quick to correct her,” Susan said.

“I felt your pain,” I said.

“It was a put-down.”

“To call you ‘Miss’?”