road. She carried a thick brown walking stick. She was not using it to walk.
Jack stopped his bike to talk with her. They were in the shade of the deciduous trees spaced along the sides of the road.
“You know,” she said, “when we first came here, when Chester was first beginning to build Vindemia, he tried to run a garden of his own. I guess I talked him into it.
“He couldn’t do it.
“He built a tight fence around it that went down three feet into the ground and six feet into the air, put a gate on it, and locked it. I asked him if he thought rabbits and deer and groundhogs have degrees in engineering.
“He watered it twice a day. Every day he gave it fertilizer. There was no such thing as a weed in that garden. As soon as I knew what he was doing, I told him to stop, leave it alone. Every time a plant looked peakish, he replaced it.
“He spoiled it. He killed it with care.”
While they talked, a pickup truck came along the road. Two men rode in front. A third stood in back.
There were two rifles in a rack in the truck’s rear window.
The truck was going slowly.
The two men in front waved at them.
As the truck passed, the man standing in back smiled down at them. He said to them, “Sure is a pretty place you have here.”
Neither Mrs. Houston nor Jack waved, smiled, or answered.
As the truck went around the curve an empty beer can thrown from it hit the pavement and rattled until it ran out of momentum.
Glancing at Mrs. Houston, Jack saw her cheeks wet with tears.
“Chester was that way,” Mrs. Houston said. “He thought about what people wanted, to be happy and healthy, needed, to fulfill themselves and be useful, and he provided it with an open hand. He protected them, even from themselves, if you know what I mean. And instead of getting back pleasure in their strength, happiness, accomplishments, some respect, appreciation, all he got back was envy, resentment, anger, hatred, everybody’s desire to destroy him or see him destroyed.
“He had to give up on his flower garden.
“Why didn’t he learn from it?”
23
“Here he is now,” Fletch said.
As Jack rode his bike under the oriole of Vindemia’s main house, he found Fletch and another man strolling the driveway from the other direction. Jack did not recognize the other man.
“Jack,” Fletch said, “this is Lieutenant Corso of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”
Straddling his bike in the shade of the oriole, Jack shook hands with the man.
“I’ve been telling the Lieutenant everything I know about what’s been going on here.” Fletch looked up from lowered eyebrows at Jack. “I told him you would do the same.”
Corso studied Jack’s shorts. “You work here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Blue and white, blue and white: everything around here is blue and white.” He looked down at his trousers. “I’m glad I wore my green suit.”
Jack said, “The flags aren’t up.”
“I’ve never seen such a place as this. Didn’t know such a place existed.”
“I have,” Fletch said. “Several. The man who builds such a place thinks he’s building it for his family to enjoy forever.”
“The gates are open,” Jack said.
Vehicles were passing the house slowly.
“I’ve been telling the Lieutenant about the lethal gas,” Fletch said. “That there wasn’t supposed to be any such thing in the laboratory. It must have come from somewhere, put there by someone. We’ve just come back from the lab.”
“Who knows?” Corso squinted. “Big lab like that. I don’t recognize anything that’s in it. All this paraphernalia. Who knows what’s supposed to be there? It’s all just junk to me. Anybody could have put anything in there at any time. The guy himself—what’s his name, Wilson?—could have drug it in himself. I used to have a chem teacher in high school, he’d take a few whiffs of something during the lunch hour. I saw him do it.”
Fletch glanced at Jack from an even more lowered face. He sighed.
“Well, I guess I should go question people,” Corso said. “About all these alleged accidents, horses falling over, frayed coffeepot wires, you say have been happening around here. You guys want to come with me? I mean, you guys can pick it up if someone says somethin’ you know not to be true from somethin’ you saw or heard, or somethin’. You know what I mean?”
“Sure,” Fletch said.
“I asked for people to be in the living room.” Corso opened the enormous brass-studded front door to the house.
Jack leaned his bike against a column.
He asked his father, “This guy any good?”
Fletch said, “If he were any stupider he’d need a bar code.”
They followed Corso into the house.
“Freedom is the opportunity for self-discipline,” Fletch said. “Let’s see if anyone around here is an opportunist.”
“Who said that?” Jack asked.
“Fellow named General Eisenhower. Maybe he said, ‘Democracy is the opportunity for self-discipline.’”
“You mean President Eisenhower?”
“You know this lawyer, Nicolson?” Fletch asked.
“No,” Jack said.
“Apparently Radliegh’s personal lawyer. He got called in yesterday from Atlanta. It seems yesterday morning Radliegh suddenly wanted to review his Last Will and Testament.”
“I know that to be true,” Jack said. “I heard Beauville and Radliegh’s secretary talking about it.”
The living room actually was several living rooms, or large sitting areas, each large enough to seat twenty or more people comfortably, in one huge room.
“Homey,” Fletch commented. “Makes me want to ask when my flight to Tulsa leaves.”
“Do airlines still give out that kind of information?” Jack asked.
“Not voluntarily,” Fletch answered. “Or reliably.”
In one living area Beauville, Downes, and a third man Jack assumed was Nicolson stood in a group near the fireplace, the center of attention. On Sunday morning each wore a proper gray suit and tie.
Mrs. Amalie Radliegh, in black dress, hat and gloves, sat in a wing-back chair. A black veil covered her face.
The Radliegh children sat as separated from each other as they could be in that space.
Daughter Amy MacDowell sat in another wing-back chair, suckling an infant.
In black shorts, Alixis sprawled on one divan; in khaki slacks and blue button-down shirt, Chet sat a little straighter in another.
Duncan, not shaven, hair uncombed, sat on the carpet in greasy overalls and t-shirt.
Nancy Dunbar sat on the divan with Chet.
Mrs. Houston was not there. Jack had just seen her on the road.
Nor was Shana Staufel there. Jack had heard her leave his cottage shortly after dawn.
“Oh, Jack …” Alixis looked up at him through tear sodden eyes. “I lost my daddy.”
Jack said, “I never heard such crap.”
Nicolson was talking to them all. “All I am saying is that there is plenty of money, of course. The estate will be settled. Each of you will be very well off. But…”
