Inside, I heard the distant sound of a piano. I flowed through the house, admiring the living room with a white marble chimney piece, hand-beaten copper vases, a rosewood whatnot with a collection of porcelain birds. In the dining room, stained-glass windows with a heraldic motif of a metal visor in the center of a blue-and-gold design overlooked a rectangular mahogany table. Balloon-backed chairs repeated the design in blue-and-gold tapestry.
At the end of the hall, I entered a long room. Chintz-covered easy chairs, a large-screen television, and a wet bar provided a homey atmosphere. A bricked wall suggested this room was a later addition.
A slender woman sat at a grand piano. Her hands moved lightly as she played “Clair de lune.” The mood and movement were mournful. She looked cool and summery in a light blue cotton blouse and a leaf-print-pattern blue- and-silver sarong skirt. Softly curling blond hair framed a face with the beauty of classic features: smoothly rounded forehead, wide-spaced blue eyes, narrow nose, perfect lips curved in a hint of a smile. She had the kind of beauty made famous long ago by Grace Kelly.
My gaze swept past a wall with an English hunting scene and stopped at a knotty-pine wall covered with family photographs that followed a little boy from toddler days to college. I saw the boy and the woman seated at the piano as they had changed over time. The woman who held him when he was little smiled down at him adoringly, a mother’s look of passionate love. The little boy’s father had an open, blunt face that had improved with age from a rather vacuous expression when he was young to a tolerant, genial middle age. Family pictures, the three of them smiling and happy, included sitting on the top rail of a wooden fence, skiing, playing tennis, boating, birthdays, dances. I studied the photos with a prickling of shock.
I stepped back, scanned the wall. Across the top of the wall was a series of studio photographs. The pictures were evenly spaced except near the end of the row, where three of the frames hung several inches farther apart.
I glanced behind me. The pensive pianist was focused on the keys, the slow music continuing.
I moved nearer the wall and quietly lifted several frames in turn. There were nicks from previous nails a few inches from the current hooks. The photographs at the end of the line had been moved to hide a missing frame. At one time, another picture had hung there.
I gently straightened the last frame and gazed at the woman. Her lovely face appeared troubled. She half turned toward the wall of pictures, perhaps sensing my movement, perhaps seeking solace. For an instant, sheer misery made her face forlorn. Her hands came down, crashing into a discordant chord.
Now was the time to confront Gwen Dunham.
On the front porch, I glanced around. No one was about. I swirled into place. I took no pleasure in what I was about to do, but someone had pushed Jack Hume to his death and I might be near to knowing why. I pushed the bell.
In a moment, the door opened. The smooth social veneer that keeps misery hidden molded her face into polite inquiry. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Dunham, I’m assisting Kay Clark with her book about Jack Hume. I would like to speak with you—”
“I can’t help you.” Her voice was thin. “I hardly knew him.” The door began to close.
“Jack Hume took your son’s hairbrush.”
“Oh God.” She clung to the doorjamb as if all her strength were gone.
“Hey, Gwen?” The robust call came from down the hall. A burly man with thinning sandy hair and a sun- reddened face strode up the hallway. “Ready to go?”
Violet eyes huge in a blanched face, she held out a beseeching hand to me. “It’s my husband. I can’t talk to you now. I can’t.”
“Three o’clock in the gazebo at The Castle.”
She nodded jerkily and the door swung shut.
I disappeared. Inside the house, I watched her turn to meet him.
The smile slid from his face. “Gwen, what’s wrong?” He darted an angry look at the door. “Who was that woman? What’s happened?”
She reached out and spread her fingers on the tiled top of the side table in the foyer. She tried to smile, but her face was paper white, her eyes staring. “The woman?” Her voice was uneven, breathless. “I don’t know.” There was a ring of truth to her voice, truth and puzzlement. “I shouldn’t have opened the door. I have a terrible headache. I’m going upstairs. I’ll lie down for a while. Go on to lunch without me. Tell Ted and Tracy I have a headache.” She turned and moved blindly toward the stairs.
He came after her, reached out to take her arm. “I’ll help—”
She pulled away. “No. I need to rest. Everything will be all right. I’ll take some medicine. Please, go on without me.”
He watched as she climbed, using the banister to pull herself from one step to another. His face held uncertainty. He moved toward the stairs, stopped, shook his head in frustration. He walked down the hall, a man deep in thought. Clearly the thought was not pleasant.
