The Final Victim, page 5
So Grandaddy's estate would be divided equally between his two sons, Gilbert Xavier III-always called by his nickname, Xavy-and Norris.
Nobody ever dreamed that neither son would outlive the father.
Now, presumably, what was meant to belong to Phyllida's father and his brother will be divided equally among their heirs.
Presumably.
Of course it will, Phyllida assures herself, watching her toddler's little chest rise and fall rhythmically in the questionable old crib.
In just a few days, when the will is read, she'll find herself tens of millions of dollars richer.
Then, to hell with the acting career, Hollywood, even Brian.
For once in her life, Phyllida Remington Harper will have everything she wants. Everything she needs.
But for now, there's nothing to do but bide her time in this spooky Southern relic of a house.
* * *
The huge plantation house kitchen reportedly once had a dirt floor and a fireplace big enough to walk into It's obviously been remodeled many times through the years. Royce doubts, however, that it's been touched in the last couple of decades, other than to add a fairly up-to-date dishwasher and wedge a microwave into a nook on the soapstone countertop.
Having spent the last few months pouring over design catalogues in the midst of redoing their new house in Savannah, he finds it fairly easy to identify each of the other upgrades with the era in which it was done.
The painted white cabinets with glass-front doors and fold-down ironing board have to be from the twenties. The enormous black cookstove is Depression era And the floor-black-and-white tile set in a checkerboard diamond pattern-is as blatantly 1950s as a tuna casserole served by June Cleaver in a bib apron.
Retro style is all the rage in the Maitlands's social circle, but here at Oakgate, everything-including the appliances-is the real deal.
Standing at the vintage farmhouse sink, Royce pours his wife's untouched sweet tea-a remnant of her well loved, late-afternoon ritual-down the drain.
"Better run some water," a voice says behind him, startling him so that he nearly drops the glass.
He turns to see the Remingtons's longtime live-in housekeeper standing in the doorway that leads to the maids' quarters off the kitchen. "Nydia! You scared me."
Her staccato laugh is free of mirth.
She's one tart old biddy, Royce thinks every time he finds himself interacting with her.
To Nydia's further discredit: she has a disconcerting way of slithering up behind a person when they least expect it. This isn't the first time she's caused Royce to jump out of his skin.
"Did you think I was a ghost, Mr. Maitland?"
"Of course not." But you do look like one, he can't help noting.
Nydia is a wisp of a woman, prone to wearing pastels, and her short hair and uninteresting features are as pale as the tiresome grits she dishes up every morning. Royce has no idea how old she is; she's one of those people who could be in her fifties or in her seventies, but is most likely somewhere in between. He does know she's been with Charlotte's grandfather since his children were young.
"Some people think this house is haunted," she comments, taking the glass from his hand and opening the dishwasher.
"Do you think it's haunted?"
"By the living as much as the dead," is her strange, prompt reply.
He waits for her to elaborate.
She doesn't, forcing him to ask, "What do you mean by that?"
Having placed the glass on the top rack, she closes the dishwasher in silence and turns to the sink, brushing him aside.
She turns on the water.
When she speaks, it's only to say, "Tea stains this old white porcelain, you know, Mr. Maitland."
Royce steps back, watching her wash it away, wondering if he should press her on that cryptic comment about the house. She's lived here for decades. She must know many things he doesn't.
Before he can speak up, she turns off the water, dries her hands, and faces him once again, dour as usual.
'There. A place for everything, and everything in its place."
"I was about to put away the glass and rinse the sink when you came in," he is compelled to inform her.
"I'm sure you were."
No, you aren't. You don't trust me, and you don't think I belong here, Royce thinks, not for the first time.
He can't help but notice, as he also has before, that Nydia owns the only pair of blue eyes he's ever seen that aren't the least bit flattering. They're close-set and' small, the washed-out shade of the sky on a halfhearted summer afternoon, with a smattering of lashes the color of fresh corn silk.
What a far cry from Charlotte's rich, purply-indigo irises fringed by lush, dark lashes.
"Where is Ms. Remington?" Nydia inquires, as if she's read his mind.
He suppresses the urge to remind her that it's Mrs. Maitland now, not Ms. Remington, and has been for over a year.
"She's upstairs changing. We're going out to dinner."
"I was about to heat some soup for Mrs. Harper and the little boy."
And she's none too pleased about that, judging by her tone.
"What about you?" he asks, determined to be civil. "Did you eat?"
She shakes her head. "I'm fine."
"Can we bring something back for you from town?", he offers generously. "Pizza? Some pecan fried chicken?" Sugar for that lemon you appear to have swallowed?
"No, thank you."
Not only doesn't she trust me, Royce notes uneasily, taken aback by her utter lack of warmth, but she doesn't like me. Not at all.
Well, that's fine. The sentiment is definitely mutual.
He can feel her gaze following him as he leaves the room, and finds himself wondering if he should mention her to Charlotte later. Hired help, after all, is dispensable-especially now that the master of the house is gone. There's no reason in the world that Nydia should stay on at Oakgate. He and Charlotte and Lianna are capable of taking care of themselves for the remaining time they're here, and Jeanne has her visiting nurse…
Well, he won't bring up the idea of firing Nydia yet to his wife. It's too soon, her grief too raw. The last thing he wants is to upset her by suggesting any sort of change at Oakgate.
He'll take her out for a nice dinner, just the two of them, and do his best to get her mind off her sorrow.
That, Royce concludes, is all a loving husband can possibly do at a time like this.
As she walks up the curving staircase and crosses the wide balcony toward the second-floor guest bedroom wing, Charlotte considers what will become of Oakgate- and Great-Aunt Jeanne-now that her grandfather is gone. Obviously, the place will have to be sold. She certainly has no desire to go on living here, and she doubts her cousins would want to-or that Aunt Jeanne would expect to.
The plantation and the paper mill were strictly Gran-daddy's, inherited from her great-grandfather, the first Gilbert Xavier Remington. Aunt Jeanne, the product of Great-Great-Grandmother Marie's shameful liaison with another man, received nothing.
Jeanne never married, and barely made a living as a bookkeeper in Savannah. She used to live in an apartment located, ironically, in one of the grand historic district mansions the Remingtons used to frequent. It, like Jeanne Remington herself, had discreetly fallen from grace over the years.
Grandaddy took her in years ago when her mental health began to fail just as their mother's had. He personally hired the finest visiting nurses available to care for her and made sure that her substantial medical and financial needs were met.
Charlotte assumes he would have expected his grandchildren to do the same after his death. She has' no problem with that, though as the lone heir still living in Georgia, she can't possibly have Aunt Jeanne living under her own roof once Oakgate is sold. It's really time for her to have full-time care, and be surrounded by people her own age.
There are plenty of nice nursing homes in Savannah. Charlotte and her cousins will just set up her aunt in one of them, and she'll be sure to visit her often.
She's family. I have to keep her in my life, no matter what, she tells herself. No matter how challenging it is, or how much time she has left.
It's impossible to tell how long poor Aunt Jeanne will outlive her half brother. She's suffered from dementia for years, though she still has startlingly lucid moments!
Charlotte uneasily recalls the most recent of them.
This morning, Aunt Jeanne was transported by the creaky old elevator to the first floor where the rest of the family was assembled for the memorial service. It was an unusual occurrence, as the elderly woman rarely leaves her third-floor quarters.
But today, she seemed to know precisely where she was and who was around her. She even called several of the visiting Remingtons by name. The wrong names, in some cases, but at least she wasn't staring vacantly into space or hurtling angry accusations.
When Reverend Snowdon arrived he bent over Jeanne's wheelchair, clasped her gnarled hand, and said, "I'm so sorry, Miss Remington, about your brother's death. I know how difficult this loss is for y'all."
"Not all of us," Aunt Jeanne said darkly.
Taken aback, Charlotte laid a hand on her aunt's black crepe-covered shoulder and said gently, "We're all upset over Grandaddy's death, Aunt Jeanne. What are you talking about?"
The old woman seemed as though she was about to elaborate. Then, glancing around the room at those nearest, albeit not necessarily dearest, to her late brother, she shrugged. "Never mind."
Now, Charlotte hesitates slightly at the base of the stairway that leads to the third floor.
Maybe she should go on up for a few minutes, just to see how Aunt Jeanne is. And perhaps, to have her decipher that cryptic remark.
But Royce is waiting downstairs. And she might be a bit hungry after all. She hasn't eaten since she picked at her dinner last night Charlotte continues along the hallway with its painted white wainscot, toward the remodeled master suite Grandaddy insisted she and Royce occupy during their stay. He said he preferred the smaller guest suite down the hall, anyway. That bathroom, he pointed out, had a bigger, deeper tub.
Grandaddy always did enjoy his nightly baths. He said they were a reprieve from daily stress, the one place he could ever truly relax in preparation for the ever-elusive full-night's sleep.
How ironic, Charlotte can't help thinking, that he had his fatal heart attack in the midst of an evening soak. If he had been anywhere else, somebody might have found him and helped him before it was too late.
But his body, like the water, was long cold by the time Nydia stumbled across him the next morning.
Charlotte pushes away the grim memory. Passing Lianna's closed door, she stops briefly and calls her daughter's name. No reply.
The television is on, probably tuned to MTV or one of those reality programs she's always watching. Pressings her ear against one of the door's thinner inlaid-wood panels, Charlotte can hear background hip hop music and kids' voices whoo-hooing. "Lianna?" she calls again. Nothing.
Shaking her head, she proceeds down the hall, telling herself it's for the best. She isn't in any frame of mind to wrangle Lianna's latest mood.
As she turns down the narrower corridor that leads; to the largest of the second-floor guestrooms, the one she shares with Royce, she sees a whisper of movement out of the corner of her eye.
Or maybe she just thought she did, because the hallway is empty. And chilled.
Oddly chilled, given the midsummer season and the lack of air-conditioning.
"Grandaddy?" Charlotte calls in a whisper, standing absolutely still. No reply. Of course not. Her grandfather is dead.
But she can't help wondering if Gilbert II, like other Remingtons before him, will continue to haunt the halls of Oakgate for years to come.
* * *
Catching a flicker of movement below, Jeanne leans closer to the window…just in time to see something dart into the shadow of a live oak at the front of the house.
Not something.
Someone.
Jeanne watches intently as the figure makes its way from tree to tree, away from the house.
Whoever it was seems to have just come from the house, and clearly doesn't want to be seen leaving.
Why not?
Does anybody know that that person was here? Or did they sneak in as furtively as they're now sneaking out?
"Jeanne? I'm back."
Startled by the cheerful singsong voice behind her, she realizes that Melanie, her home health care worker, has returned to the room.
Pushing aside her curiosity, Jeanne carefully reverts to her usual blank, wandering expression, taking up the charade once again.
CHAPTER 2
Approaching the nineteenth-century ramp that leads from Bay Street, Savannah's historic wide boulevard, to tourist-crowded River Street a story below, Charlotte finds herself reminded of the Long Island Sound beach she visited decades ago.
The sun was hot that day and the water still, lapping gently at the shore. She waded in barefoot to walk the length of the beach in ankle-deep water, as she often did back home. But here, there was no stretch of smooth, surf-washed sand. Beneath the water's surface lay a jumble of pebbles and rocks that made each step a precarious balancing act.
From a distance, the ramp to River Street is similarly misleading. It looks like a regular cobblestone path from afar, but is constructed of seashells and apple-sized rocks that jut irregularly from the mortar like clenched fists bent on toppling unwary pedestrians.
Tonight, Charlotte, in strappy high-heeled sandals, is wary of twisting an ankle as she walks down, clinging tightly to Royce's arm.
"Watch your step," he says needlessly.
She is, literally. Picking her way along, she keeps her) eyes focused on her feet.
"Can you imagine having to run for your life on this surface?" she finds herself asking Royce.
