from the pages of a glossy magazine. He was beautiful, in the full-lipped, thin-bodied, blank-eyed way of models. His shining hair fell in an artless tousle that could only have come from frequent and expensive attention, and his five o’clock shadow was more of a statement of style than a missed shave.
“Malcolm, this is Clare Fergusson. She’ll be officiating at Diana’s wedding. Clare, Malcolm Wintour.”
Upon closer viewing, Clare could see he wasn’t quite as young as she had thought. Telltale lines framed his eyes, which were extremely dilated. It looked as if this exotic hothouse specimen had taken some sort of pepper- upper before breaking that land speed record. “How do you do,” she said, shaking his hand. His grip was stronger than she would have guessed from his fashionably wasted frame. He dropped his gaze and mumbled like a shy adolescent. It sounded like “Pleasameetcha.”
“I’m afraid we have to get going. Come along, Mal, lots of stops to make before I can turn you free.” Malcolm got back behind the wheel and leaned over to unlock the passenger door for his aunt.
Clare bit the inside of her lip in frustration. She had spent all her time talking about weddings and the development, and now Peggy was leaving and she didn’t know a thing more about Bill Ingraham than she had sitting on her front porch. Weddings. The development.
“Peggy, I’d love to visit the site and see where the new spa is going to be.”
Landry paused in the act of sliding into the passenger seat. “What?”
“The development. I’d like to drive out and see the development. There’s been so much talk about it, pro and con, I’d really like to get out there, see what it’s all about, get a feel for what sort of jobs are going to be created. So I can convey that to my congregation.” She flushed a little at that instant fabrication. Now she would have to write a sermon about the development to keep herself honest.
Landry frowned again. “It’s pretty much a bunch of rough-plowed roads, holes in the ground, and big piles of dirt, Reverend Fergusson. I don’t think you’d get much from it at this stage.”
“Please?” She copied her mother’s wheedling voice, like sugar syrup over crushed ice. “It’d mean so much to me.”
Landry gestured with her hands, half in puzzlement, half in surrender. “Okay. Sure. When?”
“Today? It’s my day off, and I don’t have anything scheduled. You did say they were working today.”
Landry checked her slim watch. “It’ll take me at least another three hours to hit the tent rental, the craft store, and the lighting place. Then I need lunch…. Shall we say three o’clock? That should give me enough time.”
“Three o’clock it is.”
“Do you need directions?”
“No, no,” Clare said. “I’ll just follow the road until I hit the dirt pile.”
Chapter Thirteen
The road leading up to the future Algonquin Spa was dirt and gravel, narrow, marked by switchbacks every quarter mile as it made its way up the mountain. It put Clare in mind of a hunting-camp road, so when she reached the end, she had to blink three times in order to reconcile what she had been envisioning with what was actually before her.
An area the size of two football fields had been denuded of trees, terraced into four levels, and scraped flat to the yellow-orange soil. Several openings had been cut into the trees surrounding the building site, all but their first few feet hidden from view by the dense forest. She could see pallets of lumber covered in clear plastic tarps and barrels of steel rebars, waiting for the start of construction. Dump trucks, excavators, bulldozers, and a half dozen other machines she couldn’t name dotted the site like dinosaurs grazing, but the only engine she could hear running was the Shelby’s, purring quietly after its chug up the mountain. Nothing was moving. In fact, the place seemed unpopulated, with the exception of a few hard-hatted men clumped in front of a long trailer. There was an uneven line of pickups, interspersed with a token car or two, to her left. She pulled in next to a Ford truck with a toolbox in the bed and a gun rack in the window. Probably not a lot of Sierra Club members here, she thought as she got out of her car. The sense of openness and clear sky was dazzling after the tunnel of trees that was the road. It smelled good, earth and oil and the wet odor of new concrete, like the small airfields around her parents’ place. It had heated up since morning, but despite the strength of the sun beating the soil into powder-cake dryness, there was enough of a cooling breeze from the surrounding woods to make it comfortable. Clare pocketed her keys and walked over to the trailer.
The cluster of men loosened a little as she approached. There were five or six of them, in dirt-stiffened jeans and well-worn T-shirts featuring NASCAR racing, a plumbing company advertisement, and the Desiderata. One man wore an illustrated catalog of sexual positions on his chest. She decided, all things considering, to address the Desiderata guy.
“Hi, there. I’m supposed to meet Peggy Landry at three. Can you tell me where to find her?”
“Dunno,” the man said. “She was here for about five minutes and then took off again.”
“You ain’t here with Leo Waxman, are you?” the NASCAR-shirted man asked. “From the state geologist’s office?”
“Nope,” she said, “I’m just here to get an eyeful of the site. Peggy told me I could have the three-dollar tour.”
The one with the educational shirt grinned at her, revealing that while he may have known all about sex, he had a way to go with dental hygiene. “Well, we’ve all been taken off duty for now, so I can show you around, baby. You wanna see my big machine?”
The big guy in the plumbing shirt whacked him. “Shut up, Charlie.” He looked at Clare. “You a friend of Ms. Landry’s, ma’am?”
Clare smiled beatifically and gave them what she thought of as her
The leer vanished off the face of Mr. Sexual Positions, and his eyes darted around frantically, evidently looking for a rock to crawl under. The big guy whacked him again, grinning. “Ha! Ya mook!” He nodded to Clare. “Pleased to meet you, Reverend. I’m Ray Yardhaas. Like Charlie here said, we were called off duty ’bout an hour ago, after Ms. Landry had gone. We’re just waiting to hear if we’re going to work again today or if we can go home. I’m afraid if you came out to see the big dig, you’re out of luck.”
“Actually, I was interested in seeing the grounds,” she said. “Not that I don’t have enough of the kid in me to
