overlooking the courtyard. I peeked out at the garden. In the early-morning light, the iced pattern of plants had taken on a pearly cast.
We skirted a sawhorse and a splotch of dried beige paint on the floor. Sukie murmured something about Eliot and one of his new messes. Next we passed a closed door and rounded a corner, where Sukie opened another door. This, she announced as she switched on more electrified brass wall sconces, would be Arch’s room. Awed, Arch walked into the palatial space, where a black-and-gray Aubusson rug set the decor for a mahogany four-poster bed and silver-tasseled spread, black wingback chairs, a long gray couch, and an ornately carved desk beside a fireplace. Pen-and-ink drawings of ships hung on walls that looked as if they’d been papered with silver silk. A subdued set of black-and-gray nautical-theme fabrics had been used for the floor-to- ceiling draperies.
Sukie led me through a set of wooden doors in the corner of the room, through another corner drum tower and another set of doors, then into the bedroom whose door we’d passed earlier. This place, equally spacious, was a homage to lime and coral.
“This will be your suite,” she announced with a smile. The lofty space reminded me of those magazine photos featuring Europe’s most elegant hotels. The walls were covered with glowing pale green silk. A pink-tinted marble fireplace graced the wall facing the massive four-poster bed. Between the bed and the fireplace, Charde had thoughtfully grouped a pair of rose-and- lime chintz-covered wingback chairs. Against a wall with new windows looking out on the moat stood a long cherry-wood desk.
“Gorgeous, Sukie, really,” I gushed, overwhelmed. “You haven’t seen your bathroom!” she exclaimed, eyes gleaming.
I demurred, recalling Eliot’s anxiety over the day’s event. I needed to get organized. And I really wanted to call Tom. “I’ll check the bathroom out later, if that’s okay.”
Sukie motioned me back to Arch’s room, through “the same pair of wooden doors set at a diagonal in the southeast corner of the room. We again moved into the drum tower, which I had now figured out was at the southeast corner of the castle. As in the well tower, the air was icy, although here, glass had been put up on the inside of each of the two small windows that flanked a fireplace built into the far wall. Sukie led me to an opening in the tower wall, then pointed straight along a short, narrow passageway that ended abruptly in a wall with a seat. Wait: There had been one of these in the well tower; Arch had backed up beside it after his mini-meltdown.
“This is the garderobe where we found the letter,” Sukie declared with a triumphant grin. She threw a rusty bolt on top of the toilet, lifted the lid, and pointed downward. I swallowed a sigh. Our hostess was determined to give me the tour, no matter what. I peered down the hole, way down, and listened, until I heard the slap of moat water against the shaft. I smiled, even though I was desperate to call Tom. “After six centuries,” Sukie said, “even after the shaft was broken into pieces to be moved from England, even after they reassembled the shaft here, the place stank.”
“I don’t understand why they didn’t clean up the shaft before they sent it over,” I commented. I realized the little hallway smelled powerfully of disinfectant.
“They weren’t Swiss,” she replied matter-of-factly. In his assigned room, Arch was running the bathroom fan full blast, a sure sign he was finishing his elaborate hairdressing routine, a regimen that started with mousse and ended with hairspray that acted like plaster of Paris. When he reappeared with his hair cemented into spikes, he was wearing khaki pants, a plaid shirt, and his white Elk Park Prep Fencing Team jacket.
“Those shafts aren’t dangerous?” I murmured to Sukie as we made our way back to the kitchen.
She shook her head. “We’re having them all covered with Plexiglas before we open the conference center. The bottom of each shaft has a grille, to keep out rodents and such. The only dangerous place in the castle is the moat pump room. But don’t worry, it’s all locked up.”
I nodded as we came into the kitchen, where three of my boxes had appeared. Eliot was putting out a dish of crackers and a jar, the dark contents of which looked like homemade jelly.
“I’m not eating that,” Arch whispered to me.
“Wow,” I exclaimed over his announcement. “Mr. Hyde, is this another one of your famous preserves? Like the strawberry jam we had with the scones?”
“This is chokecherry jelly,” he said shyly, with a regal wave. “I also make fig preserves, blueberry jam, mint jelly, lemon curd - “
At that moment, Michaela Kirovsky clomped into the kitchen toting the last of my boxes. Abruptly, Eliot fell silent and bustled out the door.
Once again feeling responsible for someone else’s rudeness, I thanked Michaela profusely for her help. She waggled her head and told me not to mention it. I looked closely at her. When I’d first met her at Elk Park Prep and I talked about the banquet, I’d judged her to be about sixty. Now I saw that the prematurely white hair made her look older than she was, probably forty-five. She had that slightly pudgy, built-like- a-brick body often seen in high- school athletic coaches. Her wrinkled baby-face was exceptionally pale. Like Arch, she wore the school fencing jacket and khakis. When she heaved her load up on the trestle table next to my three other boxes, Eliot flowed back into the kitchen, clutching another jar.
“I’m sure today’s luncheon will go beautifully. And we’re very excited about the fencing banquet. Please remember, though, Goldy,” he said as he placed the new offering - plum jam - on the table, “I want the Friday night feast to conclude with a plum tart baked with jewels inside.” He swept his hair back with his hand. I sighed: The fencing banquet was four days away, for crying out loud. “The jewels will be zirconia, of course, but the children don’t need to know that. That’s a typical Elizabethan treat,” he informed us with a smile, “to bake treasures into something sweet. Only they used real jewels, of course. And sometimes they put in other surprises, such as, shall we say, four-and-twenty blackbirds? Goldy, how soon will you be able to get your recipes?”
“As soon as I pick up my disk,” I replied. I fumbled inside the box containing my laptop to make sure I had my power cord, too. “I promise I won’t take long getting it,” I added firmly, before he could start fretting again.
“So you’ll return when?” Eliot asked anxiously.]
“I’ll follow Michaela out,” I replied. “Worst-case scenario puts me back here by eight.”
“Eliot, darling,” Sukie murmured as her husband opened his mouth to protest. “The recipes can wait. You are too enthusiastic, sometimes. And - “
“That’s all your boxes,” Michaela interrupted. “Thanks again,” I said, and meant it.
She nodded, warmed her hands at the hearth, and grinned at Arch. “Ready to go, mister? Blastoff is in seven minutes.”
Arch shouldered his pack, nodded a mature farewell to me, and told Michaela he’d meet her by the portcullis. He even managed to thank Sukie and Eliot before making his way out of the kitchen.
To me, Michaela said softly, “Eliot mentioned that someone took a shot at your house last night?”
“Yes,” I said. “The police don’t have any leads yet. But I took a call on my cell phone on the way over here. There’s something I need to warn you about.” All three faces became immediately curious. “My ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, has just been granted an early release
from serving a sentence for assault. If he shows up here, please do not let him in. I’m checking on the status of a restraining order,” I added. “He’ll have to see Arch at some point, but we haven’t figured that out yet.”
Their questions tumbled out as I put the chicken and other perishables into the refrigerator: Was John Richard the one who’d shot at our window? Did he know I was here at the castle? Did he know how to get here?
“We have no idea what the man looks like,” Eliot mused, his voice concerned. “If we could have a photograph …”
“Yes, definitely, no problem,” I replied. “I’ll get one when I pick up the disk.”
The snow had stopped as Michaela, Arch, and I drove off. My van followed Michaela’s Elk Park Prep minibus down the slick, winding driveway. Her tires cut twin black tracks in the pristine trail of snowy pavement. Soon the minibus was out of sight.
When I came through the front gate and crossed the bridge onto the state highway, I remembered the rental tables that were supposed to be at Hyde Chapel. I pressed the accelerator, determined to see what was going on. Or not going on, as the case might be.
As I drove up the road, I punched the cell phone buttons for Tom’s Atlantic City motel, on the remote chance he was still there. The man who answered said Tom had left several hours ago. I then tried the main number for Furman County government and entered the buttons for Pat Gerber’s extension at the district attorney’s office. Of course, since it was not quite seven, all I reached was her voice mail. I left a message: My ex-husband got an early
