Chapter 23
Friday: The Night of the Party
The guests are crammed inside the parlor.
Constance is hunched over inspecting her injured foot, which is wrapped and taped with bandages.
Ava rubs soothing circles across her back, but she’s clearly struggling, too.
Her makeup is smudged, an irritated flush spreading across her cheeks and down her neck.
Damien slumps at the bar studying his drink. Preston sits in a forest green lounger, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes fixed on the dancing flames in the fireplace.
He stands as soon as I enter the room. “Did you talk to Evelyn?”
“Marmee no longer has a car,” I say. “The only vehicles inside the garage are golf carts used for landscaping.”
“What about phones?” Ava asks.
“Mrs. Wilson has a landline at her cottage.”
“Who is Mrs. Wilson?” Damien asks. His questions diminish the urgency of the situation, highlight just how misplaced he is here in the wake of Marlowe’s absence.
“Marmee’s house manager,” I say, drumming my fingers against the back of my neck. “She lives in the cottage by the front entrance.”
“How long will it take us to get there?” Preston asks.
“About five minutes by golf cart,” I say.
Constance reclines, fidgety hands caressing her stomach. “I can’t go anywhere. My foot is killing me.”
“Someone stay back with her,” I say. We shouldn’t split up at all in a situation like this, but if Constance is too injured to join us, leaving her with a chaperone is the next best option. No one should be alone. Not until we find out who pushed Marlowe. “The rest of us will go.”
“I’ll stay,” Preston says.
“So, it’s the three of us?” Ava says, looking between Damien and me.
“Why do I have to go?” Damien asks. He takes a lazy sip of his drink. Liquid dribbles down his chin.
“You’re comfortable sending two women off on their own?”
In any other situation, I’d deem Preston’s comment misogynistic. In this scenario, it makes me question Damien’s motives. All of us are determined to find help. Why isn’t he?
“Fine, but let’s hurry,” he says, clacking his drink against the bar. Liquid trickles down the side of his glass, pools atop the marble counter. “I’ll be outside.”
Preston cuts his eyes at Damien walking out the front door before looking back at me. “Will the two of you be okay with him?”
“Two against one,” Ava says as she rises. She gives Preston a peck on the cheek.
“Maybe it would be best for him to stay back,” he says. “We don’t know him.”
“And leave Constance alone with him?”
I march across the room to the armoire beside the fireplace.
My fingers search beneath the wooden edge for a key, the hook function a memorable design feature from my childhood.
I unlock the cabinet and pull out the bottom drawer.
Just as I remember, there are two loaded handguns placed side by side.
“Would it make you feel better if I carried this?” I say, removing one from the drawer.
“Tippi!” Ava says.
Preston raises his hands instinctively. “Is that really necessary?”
“Do you even know how to use that thing?” Constance asks.
When I was a teenager, Marmee taught me how to shoot. It was a departure from our usual forms of entertainment, that’s for sure, but one she deemed necessary.
“If your grandfather were here, he’d teach you how to do this,” she said, “which leaves the responsibility to me.”
The landscapers tacked targets to various trees in the distance.
Marmee held one gun, gave the other to me.
She showed me how to keep my arm steady, get used to the weight of the weapon in my hands, prepare for the unsettling jolt after discharge.
When I finally pulled the trigger, my aim was better than either of us had expected.
“It’s for protection,” I say, training my eyes on Ava. “Let’s go.”
I slide the gun into one of the bulky pockets of my Birds costume’s jacket. The ensemble’s boxy shape keeps the weapon easily concealed. If there is an intruder on the grounds, another person who has arrived uninvited, they’ll never guess I’m packing.
Once outside, I lead Ava and Damien to the garage.
Hope flickers in my chest at the possibility Marmee is wrong, that there is a car after all, maybe one a landscaper left behind she doesn’t know about.
No such luck. There are a few riding lawnmowers, trowels, and gardening tools, and two four-seater golf carts that appear barely used, the chrome hardware twinkling beneath the fluorescent strips on the ceiling.
I jump behind the wheel of one, Ava beside me.
Damien sits on the rear-facing passenger seat, his back to us.
The golf cart rumbles into a drive; the speed of the vehicle is faster than I expected, smoother than the older model I remember driving around the property during my youth.
Weak headlights illuminate the path before us, the manicured hedges on either side of us appearing and disappearing as we zoom by.
The scent of damp earth and gasoline is all around us.
“Marlowe was right,” Ava says.
“About what?”
“I hate when Preston tells that story,” she says. “He had nothing to do with starting my business.”
“We know that.”
“But Damien doesn’t. Or the countless other people he’s told it to over the years,” she says. “It’s bad enough people assume I’m a gold digger. When I start to build a name for myself, they still think it’s because of him.”
“Preston couldn’t tell the difference between a salad fork and a soup spoon,” I say. “Your success with the business comes from your talents alone.”
“Why can’t he let me have it, then?” she snaps.
“When he had a career, I let him have the limelight. I didn’t insert myself into his achievements.
I could have bragged about the nutritious meals I cooked and the physical trainers I researched, the supplements I encouraged him to take, but I never did.
At the end of the day, he was the person putting in the work. He deserved to take the credit.”
She wraps the shawl tighter around her shoulders as the passing wind shifts, tangling her hair.
“I never asked him to hire anyone to look into the competition,” she says.
“When he tells people he did that, it makes it seem like I didn’t earn this life.
Like it was just something else handed to me.
Marlowe picked up on the tension between us.
She was trying to comfort me, and I was rude to her in return. ”
“Don’t focus on that,” I tell her, my advice futile.
In the wake of tragedy, it’s natural to reprocess every detail, every missed sentiment.
Sadness scratches the back of my throat.
That final conversation with Marlowe will torture Ava in the years to come, a vicious time loop of a memory inflicting heartache over and over and over.
She stops talking as we approach the front gates, and my heart stalls when I see that they’ve been left open.
“That’s strange,” Ava says, clearly thinking the same thing. “Wouldn’t the gates have closed after the drivers left?”
“They should have.” Either Opal or Mrs. Wilson would have been the last to leave, and I remember the latter assuring Marmee she’d lock everything up.
If the gate has been open the majority of the night, does that mean someone else might be on the property?
I consider driving the golf cart over to close the gate manually but deem accessing a phone more important.
I’m struck by the irony of seeing the Morning Cottage at night. Low-hanging tree branches hover above, crafting a canopy that conceals the house in gradient shadows.
“It doesn’t look like anyone is home,” Damien says once I’ve killed the engine. He hasn’t said a word since we left the house, the rattling engine preventing him from hearing my conversation with Ava.
“No one’s home,” I say. “We just need a phone.”
“Where is Mrs. Wilson?” Ava asks.
“Visiting family,” I say. “No one’s expected to come back until after the weekend.”
“What if the phone doesn’t work?” Damien asks, hopping off the back of the golf cart.
“It will,” I say, blind positivity my last resource.
I bend down, sifting through the rocks along the house’s edge in search of the hide-a-key. Once I find it, I unlock the front door with ease, and we enter the small house. I haven’t been inside since I was a young girl.
A framed photo of Marmee and Mrs. Wilson hangs on the wall.
It’s from a trip they took to Rome several years ago.
It was Marmee’s gift for Mrs. Wilson’s sixtieth birthday.
They’ve been in each other’s lives for such a long time that their relationship far exceeds that of employer and employee.
Other decorative items are tacked on the wall.
Family photographs, landscape portraits, and a vintage quilt encased in glass.
“Over here,” Ava says. Hanging on the wall by the grandfather clock is a landline with a rubberized spiral cord. I race to grab the receiver.
After a lifetime of watching suspenseful movies, I anticipated some kind of defeat. A cut phone line. A downed tower. I almost squeal when I hear a dial tone. My call to 911 connects within seconds.
“Our friend fell from a balcony,” I tell the operator when she answers, my voice breaking again. “We need an ambulance.”
Ava and Damien stare at me with such intensity, it’s difficult to concentrate. The operator tells me to start over, give her as much detail as possible about our location and the lead-up to the fall. Most of her questions pertain to Marlowe’s condition.
“Is she breathing?” the operator asks. “Can anyone administer medical attention?”
“We tried,” I say, stumbling over the words. “There’s no saving her.”
The operator continues, “And you say she fell from a balcony?”
My opinion was formed earlier in the night.
Marlowe was murdered. I could tell the operator my suspicions, that her fall was no accident, that she was pushed by someone here.
If the police know foul play is involved, they’ll hurry their arrival.
The scene unfolding inside my mind is vivid and frightening.
Police roving around Marmee’s property like it’s a crime scene, interrogating people about their whereabouts, piecing together every detail of the night.
Authorities will have to get involved at some point, sure. I want them involved so Marlowe can receive justice, but I want an opportunity to unravel the other mysteries of this night first. I need more time.
“Yes, she fell,” I say at last.
“Is anyone in immediate danger?” the operator asks.
“No,” I lie, reiterating that Marlowe’s death was an accident, explaining that we have no cell phone connection and no cars and had to venture to a different residence in order to phone the police. She relays her instructions. Cooling relief spreads through my cheeks by the time the call ends.
“What did they say?” Ava asks once I clunk the receiver back on the switch hook.
“It will take at least ninety minutes for a cruiser to arrive.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Damien says, checking the time on his Rolex.
“The operator said emergency services are tied up with the car accident in town,” I say. “The tarot reader mentioned it, remember?”
“That’s why she was late.” Ava exhales, then shakes her head. “There’s been a death. You’d think that would be at the top of their priority list.”
“Not if there are people in town needing resources.”
And not if they believe no one here is at risk. I don’t dare share my thoughts.
The police will come. My lie has only extended the timeframe.
“Did they say anything else?” Ava asks, wrapping her arms around herself.
“They said no one should leave,” I say.
“Not like we have much of a choice.” Damien massages his temples, annoyed.
I jangle the golf cart keys and start toward the front door. “We better head back to the house.”
Ava and Damien shuffle behind me, noticeably upset that this night is far from over.
When I first received Oliver’s messages, I couldn’t shake the feeling something awful would happen, and I was right.
There’s no saving Marlowe. If the police are expected to arrive in ninety minutes, that’s all the time I have left to figure out the meaning behind Oliver’s messages and whether they’re connected to Marlowe’s death.