“I took on their old house up on the other side of the ridge about four or five years ago.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, their kids were grown and they wanted something smaller, closer to their work.”
“What sort of work do they do?”
“Real estate. Property management. They have exclusive rights to Pritchard Cove.”
“Pritchard Cove? Isn’t that where Dr. Ledwig lived?”
“Ledwig?” He snorted. “Nope. I did hear tell he wanted to dynamite it off the face of the mountain, though.”
“Why?” Not that I cared, but anything to distract me from this headlong hurtle into hell. “What
“Well, some folks would say it’s the best-planned community in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Others like Ledwig’ll tell you it’s a desecration of unspoiled land. Pritchard Cove was a mote in his eye. And not a teeny-tiny little mote either—it was a Gee-dee two-by-four beam. Wrecked his view.”
I thought back to the pictures I’d seen in court today. Admittedly, the focus was on the deck and on the victim’s body, not the view from that deck, but I couldn’t remember seeing anything except a long vista of colorful treetops and I said as much.
“Well-planned,” Billy Ed said again. “The houses were designed to blend into the shape of the land. Most of the trees weren’t touched, and even when the leaves drop off it’s hard to see ’em ’cause their covenant prohibits big grassy lawns. ’Course now, the houses
“I take it Dr. Ledwig looked?”
“With a magnifying glass.”
By now we had made so many turns, there was no way I could have found my way back to Cedar Gap. All the turns ran together, except that each was onto a narrower road, until we finally pulled into a long graveled driveway that ran up a steep grade between trees that met overhead. We circled a thicket of hemlocks, then the ground abruptly leveled and the drive broadened into a huge circle of gravel in front of a long low house built of rough gray stones. From Jeeps and pickups to a couple of Land Rovers and one bright yellow Hummer, at least forty vehicles were parked beneath the trees.
The gravel drive turned to flagstones that led directly to a massive wooden door that stood ajar so that anyone could walk in. We passed through a large reception room, where the entire opposite wall was nothing but glass that looked out into the dark night. To one side was a three-foot-tall pottery jar filled with long branches of bright orange bittersweet berries. Overstuffed couches and chairs were clumped in conversational groupings before a stone wall with a fireplace spacious enough to roast an ox. A log fire snapped and crackled on the hearth. Above it hung a big oil painting that looked like it could be a Bob Timberlake original. It pictured an old-fashioned kitchen table during jam-making—gleaming jars of jellied fruit capped with squares of colorful calico, a copper kettle and ladle, and an earthenware bowl of luscious blackberries awaiting their turn in the kettle.
An oversize quilting frame and several chairs stood in front of the windows and a brilliant king-size patchwork quilt was a work in progress. Beautiful hand-thrown mountain pottery glowed beneath individual baby spotlights in the ceiling.
More patchwork quilts were draped over the backs of the couches, and I had an impression of space and rustic luxury. If this was the “smaller place” the Ashes had bought when they downsized, how big was their previous house that Billy Ed “took on”?
There was no time to speculate, though. This level was empty, and Billy Ed was already disappearing with my guitar case down a flight of iron and stone steps at the end of the room, so I hurried after him.
Like the courthouse back in town, the Ashes’ house was built down the side of a mountain. I saw another large room almost identical to the one above, complete with stone fireplace and a cheerful fire, except that here the wall of glass was punctuated with French doors that opened onto a wide stone terrace, and the painting over the fireplace was a romantic mountain vista. Unlike the first, this level buzzed with laughter, talk, the clink of silverware against plates, and the tinkle of ice in a variety of glasses. I smelled hot yeast rolls and the aroma of something savory that probably came from the copper chafing dishes on the loaded buffet table in the middle of the room. A bar backed onto the staircase and seemed to be better stocked than some I’d seen in restaurants. Two white- jacketed Latinos were busily filling drink orders.
As I paused near the bottom of the steps, my hostess detached herself from a group and came over with outstretched hands and a welcoming smile. “
“Call me Deborah,” I said, belatedly remembering that I was still wearing the grimy cap Billy Ed had handed me in the car. I pulled it off, laughed at the raunchy logo, which I hadn’t noticed before, and stuffed it into my shoulder bag. At least my jeans, white broadcloth shirt, and red wool cardigan were in sync with what everyone else here was wearing. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“Not at all. Let’s get you a drink and then come meet some of your colleagues.”
Joyce Ashe was as I’d remembered her: an easygoing, big-boned woman carrying about twenty-five extra pounds and comfortable with it. She had one of the bartenders build me a Bloody Mary (I hadn’t eaten anything since my chicken salad at noon and Bloody Marys always feel like food), refreshed her own bourbon and branch, then led me over to a group warming themselves by the fireplace.
“I hear you already know Lucius Burke,” she said as the circle opened to admit us.
“Yes,” I said, taking the hand the district attorney offered and trying not to fall into those incredible green eyes. The names of the two attorneys and someone who owned a ski lodge just on the other side of the Tennessee border went in one ear and out the other. To cover my lapse, I moved closer to the hearth to examine the picture. According to the little brass plate attached to the simple wood frame, it had been painted in 1903 by an artist named Genevieve Carlton. I read the title out loud:
Joyce Ashe laughed. “Well, that’s what the artist called it. Bobby and I call it
I looked at the painting with renewed interest. “I didn’t know Florida had any mountains,” I said, stepping right
