On, Off

Circle, he sold it for less than it was worth to get back at Robin, asking for half. After a harrowing struggle deciding which daughter was more in need of her, Robin moved to Boston and the budding gynecologist, Roberta. Robina sent her sister a sympathy card, but Roberta was actually delighted to have a housekeeper.

All of which meant that Desdemona was able to offer Sophia tenure of the tower.

“It’s quite divine,” she said casually, not wanting to sound too enthusiastic. “The top room has a widow’s walk – you could use it as your living room – and the room beneath would make a tiny bedroom if we chopped off a bit of it to make a bathroom as well as a kitchenette. Carmine and I thought that perhaps you could finish high school at the Dormer, then think about a good university. Who knows, Chubb might be coeducational before you’re old enough to begin your degree. Would you be interested?”

The sophisticated teenager shrieked with joy; Sophia flung her arms around Desdemona and hugged her. “Oh, yes, please!”

July was just about to turn into August when Claire Ponsonby sent a message to Carmine that she would like to see him. Her request came as a surprise, but even she hadn’t the power to spoil his sanguine mood on this beautiful day of blossoms and singing birds. Sophia had arrived from L. A. two weeks ago and was still trying to decide whether to have wallpaper or paint on her tower’s interior walls. What she and Desdemona found to talk about amazed him, as indeed did his once starchy wife. How lonely she must have been, scrimping and saving to buy a life that, judging by the way she had taken to marriage, would never have satisfied her. Though maybe some of it was due to her pregnancy, a trifle in advance of her wedding day; the baby would be born in November, and Sophia couldn’t wait. Little wonder then that even Claire Ponsonby had not the power to mar Carmine’s sense of well- being, of a rather late fulfillment.

She and the dog were waiting on the porch. Two chairs were positioned one on either side of a small white cane table that held a jug of lemonade, two glasses and a plate of cookies.

“Lieutenant,” she said as he came up the steps.

“Captain these days,” he said.

“My, my! Captain Delmonico. It has a good ring to it. Do sit down and have some lemonade. It’s an old family recipe.”

“Thanks, I’ll sit, but no lemonade.”

“You wouldn’t eat or drink anything my hands had prepared, would you, Captain?” she asked sweetly.

“Frankly, I wouldn’t.”

“I forgive you. Let us simply sit, then.”

“Why did you ask to see me, Miss Ponsonby?”

“Two reasons. The first, that I am moving on, and while I understand from my lawyers that no one can prevent my moving on, I did think it prudent to inform you of that fact. Charles’s station wagon is loaded with the things I want to take with me, and I’ve hired a Chubb student to drive it, me and Biddy to New York City tonight. I’ve sold the Mustang.”

“I thought Six Ponsonby Lane was your home to the death?”

“I’ve discovered that nowhere is home without dear Charles. Then I received an offer for this property that I just couldn’t refuse. You might be pardoned for thinking that no one would buy it, but such is not the case. Major F. Sharp Minor has paid me a very handsome sum for what, I believe, he intends to turn into a museum of horrors. Several New York City travel agents have agreed to schedule two-day tours. Day one: bus up at leisure through the charming Connecticut countryside, have dinner and spend the night at Major Minor’s motel – he is refurbishing it in style. Day two: a conducted tour of the Connecticut Monster’s premises, including a crawl through the fabled tunnel. Feed the deer guaranteed to be waiting outside the tunnel door. Stroll back to the Monster’s lair to see fourteen imitation heads in the authentic setting. Naturally a sound track of screams and howls will be playing. The Major is gutting the old living room to seat thirty diners and is turning our old dining room into a kitchen. After all, he can’t have a chef preparing lunch on an Aga stove while people are watching it move in and out. Then bus back to New York,” Claire said levelly.

Jesus, the sarcasm! Carmine sat listening entranced, glad she couldn’t see his open mouth.

“I thought you didn’t believe any of it.”

“I don’t. However, I am assured that these things do exist. If they do, then I deserve to benefit from them. They are giving me the chance to make a fresh start somewhere far from Connecticut. I’m thinking of Arizona or New Mexico.”

“I wish you luck. What’s the second reason?”

“An explanation,” she said, sounding softer, more like the Claire he had sympathized with, felt liking for. “I acquit you of being the brutish cop stereotype, Captain. You always seemed to me a man dedicated to your work – sincere, altruistic even. I can see why I fell under suspicion of those dreadful crimes, since you continue to insist that the killer was my brother. My own theory is that Charles and I were duped, that someone else did all the – er – renovations in our cellars.” She sighed. “Be that as it may, I decided that you are gentleman enough to ask me some questions as a gentleman should – with courtesy and discretion.”

Victory at last! Carmine leaned foward in his chair, hands clasped. “Thank you, Miss Ponsonby. I’d like to begin by asking you what you know about your father’s death?”

“I imagined you’d ask me that.” She stretched out her long, sinewy legs and crossed them at the ankles, one foot toying with Biddy’s ruff. “We were very wealthy before the Depression, and we lived well. The Ponsonbys have always enjoyed living well – good music, good food, good wine, good things around us. Mama came from a similar background – Shaker Heights, you know. But the marriage was not a love match. My parents were forced to marry because Charles was on the way. Mama was prepared to go to any lengths to snare Daddy, who didn’t really want her. But when push came to shove, he did his duty. Charles came six months later. Two years after that, Morton came, and two years after that, I came.”

The foot stopped; Biddy whined until it started again, then lay with eyes closed and snout on its front paws. Claire went on.

“We always had a housekeeper as well as a scrubwoman. I mean a live-in servant who did the lighter domestic work except for cooking. Mama liked to cook, but she detested washing the dishes or peeling the potatoes. I don’t think she was particularly tyrannical, but one day the housekeeper quit. And Daddy brought Mrs. Catone home – Louisa Catone. Mama was livid. Livid! How dare he usurp her prerogatives, and so on. But Daddy liked having his own way quite as much as Mama did, so Mrs. Catone stayed. She was a gem, which brought Mama around – I imagine that Mama must have known from the start that Mrs. Catone was Daddy’s mistress, but things were fine for a long time. Then there was a terrible – oh, just terrible! – quarrel. Mama insisted that Mrs. Catone must go, Daddy insisted that she would stay.”

“Did Mrs. Catone have a child?” Carmine asked.

“Yes, a little girl named Emma. Some months older than I,” Claire said dreamily, smiled. “We played together, ate our meals together. My eyesight wasn’t very good, even then, so Emma was a tiny bit my guide dog. Charles and Morton detested her. You see, the quarrel happened because Mama discovered that Emma was Daddy’s child – our half sister. Charles found the birth certificate.”

She fell silent, foot still stirring Biddy’s ruff.

“What was the result of the quarrel?” Carmine prompted.

“Surprising, yet not surprising. Daddy was called away on urgent business the next day, and Mrs. Catone left with Emma.”

“When was this in relation to your father’s death?”

“Let me see…I was nearly six when he was killed – a year before that. Winter to winter.”

“How long had Mrs. Catone been with you when she left?”

“Eighteen months. She was a remarkably pretty woman – Emma was her image. Dark. Mixed blood, though more white than anything else. Her speaking voice was lovely – lilting, honeyed. A pity that the words she said with it were always so banal.”

“So your mother fired her while your father was away.”

“Yes, but I think there was more to it than that. If we children had only been a little older, I could tell you more, or if I, the girl, had been the eldest – boys are not observant when it comes to emotions, I find. Mama could frighten people. She had a power about her. I talked to Charles about it many times, and we decided that Mama threatened to kill Emma unless the two of them disappeared permanently. And Mrs. Catone believed her.”

“How did your father react when he came home?”