Chapter 13 #2
“What about the gardens? I’m only asking because I may join the search party,” I semi-lied. “I spotted a hedge maze in the center. Perhaps he… got lost?”
“I ordered the team to search high and low, to check every inch of the gardens. I also contacted the front gate, and I called all of our friends in New York as well as the firm that handles our money. No one has heard from him, and he left his phone, wallet, and keys here. It’s like he vanished into thin air.
” She took a swig of her drink and then stared at me over the lip of the glass before continuing: “My husband is aging. He just turned seventy-five, and even though he doesn’t look it, he has a list of ailments a mile long.
Gout, diabetes, high blood pressure…” She realized to whom she was speaking and trailed off.
“Regardless, he doesn’t just”—Glenda raised a hand in the air—“wander off without letting me know his whereabouts. You may not realize this, but a twenty-five-year age difference at this point in our marriage means I play nurse far more often than I play wife.”
“Of course, Mrs. Finch,” Katie said, trying to mollify the woman’s mood as she pushed a wingback chair closer to the settee and sat on the edge with her ankles tucked out of the way. “I’m sure Mr. Finch will reappear any minute. Dakota doesn’t mean to pry.”
But that’s exactly what I meant to do. It was the only way to find evidence to get my aunt out of jail and ensure that the show continued so I could have a chance at winning the prize money. I needed those things to happen as soon as humanly possible.
Mrs. Finch ran a finger around the outside of the glass before handing it back to me. “Another, if you don’t mind.”
I did as bid and gave it back to her.
“That man has loved every minute of his life. Every event, every trip, every woman.” Here, she took another long gulp. “If he’s gone, there’s a reason.”
“But there was no sign of a fight. Or of a break-in,” Katie said, patting Mrs. Finch’s hand in a calming manner. “You really should try to think positively.”
“I know my husband. He wouldn’t fight. He would use his charm—or his money—to get himself out of a scrape. He may be negotiating with his captor at this very moment.”
A sudden possibility hit me. “You said that when you left him this afternoon, Mr. Finch was finishing a glass of whiskey and about to take a nap, right?” I held out the bottle. “He’s a relatively small man. What if—what if the whiskey is drugged, and someone carried him out?”
Mrs. Finch held her glass to the light, looking through it as if she might see particles of husband-disappearing molecules inside. “If the whiskey is drugged, I guess we’ll soon find out.” Then, she took the final sip.
I was concerned as she held out the glass for another. Did this woman have a death wish? Or was I so off the mark that she was mocking my conjectures? Either way, I was obviously doing great in my first few minutes as an amateur detective.
I refilled her glass and handed it back. Glancing around the room, I tried to keep my itching fingers away from the ledger in my pocket.
A moment later Savilla entered. She’d taken off her hat and outfit from earlier, and she’d changed into a plush pink robe and wound Velcro curlers through her hair.
Her face was caked in some kind of mint-green mask, so only her eyes, now makeup-less, were visible.
She carried a plate of toast as well as an assortment of tea cakes and scones that I was almost certain no one would eat.
As she served her stepmother, I felt entirely unnoticed, which allowed my eyes to roam to the art hanging around the room.
There were four paintings, each an abstract of a faceless woman wearing a sash and crown. I moved closer to the piece nearest me while Savilla and Katie continued to fuss over Mrs. Finch. In the corner of the first canvas, I caught the name of the subject and the painter.
Miss 1990 by Frederick Finch.
Miss 1990. That was the year that my aunt had won.
I inched nearer to the picture to find any defining features of Aunt DeeDee.
Beyond the blond hair, which each of the women in the paintings seemed to have, I couldn’t find anything…
except for… my eyes scanned the subject until they landed on my aunt’s collarbone.
There it was. The faintest purple smattering of paint on the right side of her clavicle.
My aunt’s oval birthmark. A hemangioma, my mother had said, telling me the technical term the first time I could remember asking about it as a child when I pointed to a similar mark, this one heart-shaped, on my forearm.
It was another physical trait that Aunt DeeDee and I shared.
But I knew for a fact that she always disguised hers with makeup; she would’ve never let her birthmark shine brightly during the pageant, as Mr. Finch had suggested in his painting.
I squinted at it again before moving on to the next one.
Miss 2001 by Frederick Finch.
The year of the missing winner and now the stolen crown. There was no way I could determine the person in that painting. No special marks and, like all the others, the subject was blond with a blurred face.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to wonder because Mrs. Finch caught me studying the painting and volunteered the information.
“That’s me. In my younger years. What do you think?”
Before I could stop myself, I asked, “How do you know it’s not the original Miss 2001?”
The three other women in the room halted in mid-motion.
At least twenty seconds passed before Mrs. Finch let out a tinkling laugh.
“Of course it’s me.” She waved a hand as if wafting at a vapor.
“Miss 2001 excused herself from the festivities, and I was immediately crowned queen. I’ve held the honor for years.
She had it for… I don’t know… a matter of hours.
” She said the final words as if the initial loss of first place didn’t cut deep, which helped me understand how much the wound had actually stung.
“Who was she?” I asked, perhaps too bluntly. “The first Miss 2001?”
Savilla coughed, and Katie held her breath. Apparently, neither of them wanted me talking with Mrs. Finch about her past.
“Sometimes…” Mrs. Finch gestured vaguely in my direction. “Sometimes even the best showrunners don’t do their jobs well.” She gave me a pointed look, as if I should know to whom she referred.
“Wait… who was in charge? Aunt DeeDee?”
Mrs. Finch shrugged. “For all involved, I think it’s best to leave the past in the past. Don’t you think, Cheyenne?”
“Dakota,” I corrected again. “And, no, I think it’s best to—”
“Yes, of course, of course,” Mrs. Finch said, cutting me off.
“You know, it’s an unfortunate reality that sometimes…
well, people lie and there are consequences.
You are so good to remind us.” She gave me a polished smile before continuing.
“When that year’s queen abdicated her throne, the crown and title fell to me.
It could have caused quite a scandal if I hadn’t graciously stepped up to the task.
As it was, everyone was thrilled with how I handled my duties, especially Mr. Finch. ”
Savilla seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at her stepmother’s summary of events while Katie averted her gaze. Both responses only made me want to know more.
“A lucky break, that’s what it was. My parents couldn’t even afford to miss work to drive down for the pageant,” Mrs. Finch said, nestling into the settee.
I sensed her addressing me even as she closed her eyes in remembrance.
“I borrowed a couple of dresses from another friend who had more money than we did, and I took the car into Richmond one day to shop with the only credit card Daddy had to his name. I left the tags on everything and planned to return them after the contest.”
“But you won—at least, eventually?” I could almost see Mrs. Finch standing onstage as runner-up, salivating for that winning crown before taking it the next day.
Why wasn’t she the primary suspect here?
She clearly didn’t care for her husband, and that crown had landed in her greedy hands.
I strolled past the third and fourth paintings, these less remarkable and more recent.
Miss 2012. Miss 2019. Both by Frederick Finch.
Mrs. Finch opened her eyes and studied me as if she’d suddenly become alerted to my nosiness.
I wondered for a moment if she might kick me out of her apartment, but she was far too polite—or at least wanted to appear that way.
Besides, if she had nothing to hide, I couldn’t be a threat.
Perhaps she sensed me thinking as much because she continued, “Yes, after a bit of… drama, I won the crown and so much more.”
I looked at the three women sitting in a half-moon in this Victorian-era apartment covered in pink.
Mrs. Finch lay on what would’ve been called a fainting couch a hundred years earlier when the pageant had begun.
The other two ladies—a fashion-conscious, middle-aged Katie and a chic, young Savilla—looked like Mrs. Finch’s ladies in waiting, her loyal companions, her partners in crime.
I tried to squash my wandering thoughts. I couldn’t allow the décor and this strange environment to cloud my thinking. For all I knew, the original Miss 2001 had run far away and gone on to live a full and happy life.
But, no, that idea didn’t set well in my gut, as Momma would’ve said. The police had found that year’s crown in my aunt’s room on the very night that Mr. Finch had supposedly written to the “real jewels” of his life, telling them to “go on without” him.
There was more to Miss 2001.
Mrs. Finch finished her little diatribe. “Frederick was smitten.” She laughed dryly. “He told me later that he hadn’t wanted me to win the crown because he’d already decided to marry me, and it might make people think the pageant was rigged.”
“Is it?” I asked.
“Of course not,” answered a startled Savilla, her ice-blue eyes boring into me for the first time. Perhaps she wanted her stepmother to rest… or maybe she didn’t like my curiosity about her family. She stood abruptly, excusing herself to get ready for the party before hurrying away.
I could almost see Mrs. Finch all those years ago, playing coy, refusing to sleep with Mr. Finch so she could have the real prize—all of this. When Miss 2001 fell off the face of the earth, Mrs. Finch won the man, the estate, and the crown.
Lucky girl.