Clause & Effect Page 6

  I didn’t want to think about the pageant until later. Much later. Lunch first. Then my own work. Then a long soak in a bathtub full of bubbles followed by a hot meal. Although I’m not much of a drinker, I considered adding something tall, cold, and alcoholic to my dinner plans.

  This agenda went out the window the moment my landline rang and Ronnie North’s name came up on the caller ID. I should have let the call go to my answering machine, but I picked up because I wanted to give her a piece of my mind. Since she was not only a member of the historical society’s board of directors but also, like Tom, one of the board of trustees for Lenape Hollow, I had her pegged as the source of his misconception about my role in the pageant. I intended to make it crystal clear to her that I would only deal with the script, not any additional responsibilities involved in putting on a show.

  She launched into a diatribe of her own before I could utter a single word. I held the receiver away from my ear, staring at it in disbelief. How had this morning’s horrific discovery become my fault? I wasn’t the one who’d put that body in the wall. I wasn’t the one who found it, and I hadn’t been involved in the decision to authorize repairs on the historical society’s headquarters.

  Having removed my right hearing aid—it squeals if I leave it in when I’m on the phone—I dropped it into a small bowl on the kitchen counter and struggled to comprehend what Ronnie was blathering about. Since her volume was set to screech, I could hear her perfectly well, but she wasn’t making much sense.

  A one-sided dialogue ensued. I didn’t manage much more than the occasional But, Ronnie—or Ronnie, you—. Frustrated, I was tempted to hang up on her, but since I felt certain she’d run out of steam eventually, I forced myself to wait until she wound down.

  Big mistake! I’d underestimated my old nemesis. She concluded her rant by snapping out a command: “We’ve scheduled an emergency meeting of the board of directors for eight o’clock tonight at my house. Be there.”

  Then she hung up on me.

  I cradled the receiver, shaking my head and envisioning a corporate boardroom with everyone except Ronnie seated around a long conference table. She floated above them, holding the strings attached to their arms.

  Smiling at the image, I reached for my hearing aid. My expression turned into a puzzled frown when my fingers found only the smooth ceramic interior of the bowl. With a sense of resignation, I dropped my gaze to the floor, unsurprised to discover Calpurnia having a grand old time batting something small and oddly shaped across the kitchen floor.

  At least she hadn’t tried to eat it.

  Chapter 8

  Ann Ellerby, Ronnie’s housekeeper, answered the door when I arrived at the mansion on Chestnut Drive for the board meeting. She isn’t anyone’s stereotype of the longtime faithful servant. Her uniform consists of jeans and a sweatshirt in winter and jeans and a tee in summer. The T-shirt she wore on this occasion was so faded that I couldn’t make out the slogan written on the front. That was probably just as well.

  “Ah, the sacrificial lamb,” she said by way of greeting. Ann has always been something of a wiseacre.

  “Thanks so much for that image. Where are we meeting?”

  “They’re in the formal dining room and everyone else is already here. I’ll show you the way.”

  I appreciated the offer of a guide. Ronnie owns a good-sized house and I’d only visited it a couple of times before. I’d never been invited for a formal, sit-down meal.

  I didn’t pay much attention to the décor as we went, although it was probably well worth admiring. Ronnie has been married three times and each successive husband was wealthier than the last. She’d spared no expense when it came to decorating her house or, for that matter, her person. Although I think her attempts to disguise her age are misguided, I can’t fault her taste in other areas.

  Ann flung open an ornately carved wooden door to reveal a large, brightly lit room containing a mahogany dining table with seating for twelve. Eight of the chairs were occupied. A sideboard and a drinks cabinet completed the furnishings. Open French doors let the mild evening air drift inside and drew my eyes to the artfully landscaped garden beyond. Given the season, there was still plenty of sunlight left to admire the view.

  “It’s about time you got here,” Ronnie said.

  “Always the gracious hostess.” I advanced into the room just as a clock elsewhere in the house started to strike the hour. “You said eight. It’s eight.”

  I had a sneaking suspicion that she’d told everyone else to come at seven-thirty. A quick glance at Darlene’s face confirmed my theory. She hid a smile behind her hand.

  I recognized only two of the others gathered in Ronnie’s dining room, and one of them was not a member of the board. I sent Greg Onslow a curt nod of greeting. Despite the fact that he’s only in his mid- to late-thirties, he has streaks of white in his hair. They may be natural, but it’s just as likely that he had them added to give him gravitas. There are certainly other things about him that are phony, starting with his claim that he only wants what is best for Lenape Hollow. Making a profit for Mongaup Valley Ventures always comes first with Onslow. The perpetually cold, calculating look in his otherwise attractive green eyes is a dead giveaway.

  Gilbert Baxter, the historical society’s director, sat next to Onslow, looking much as he had earlier in the day. He hadn’t been in the building when we made our grisly discovery, but I felt certain the police had contacted him shortly thereafter. Had he called this meeting, I wondered, or was it all Ronnie’s idea?

  With a preemptory gesture, she waved me into the vacant chair between Darlene and an attractive, dark-haired woman who was by far the youngest person in the room. She was also the rudest, ignoring everyone else while she texted. I caught a glimpse of the screen as I settled into my seat, enough to tell me that the message she was typing had nothing to do with the pageant or the historical society.

  “This is Stacy Javits,” Ronnie said, indicating the twenty-something beside me. “The town supervisor appointed her as town historian, which automatically makes her a member of our board.” If Ronnie’s pursed lips were anything to go by, she did not approve of the appointment.

  Stacy spared me a nanosecond’s worth of sideways glance. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.”

  “And I’m Sunny Feldman.”

  The woman sitting to Ronnie’s right had a husky voice that would have been described as sexy in someone half her age. If Stacy was the youngest member of the board, Sunny was clearly the oldest. Since I could remember her as a mature adult when I was a child, that placed her somewhere upward of eighty. If memory served, I’d still been in grade school when her picture appeared in the local paper at the opening of a new building at Feldman’s.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  Since she was seated, I couldn’t tell how tall she was. My best guess was short. She was plump, with a round, cherubic face, but the intensity in her dark brown eyes as she studied me dispelled any notion that she might fall into the sweet little old lady category. I could tell right away that an energetic individual with an intelligent, active mind lurked behind that fluffy façade.

  “This is our mayor.” Ronnie indicated the gentleman to her left. “Anthony Welby.”

  “Call me Tony.” The mayor stood to reach across the table and shake my hand. “Call me Tony,” he said a second time, as if I’d objected to the informality.

  His grip was firm and he placed his free hand on top of mine as he grasped it. The contact was brief and practiced, lasting just long enough to assure that we had time to lock eyes. Coffee-colored and fringed with long lashes, his radiated sincerity. When my gaze dropped a bit lower to his wide smile, I found myself staring at four very large, very white front teeth. I couldn’t help noticing that the one on the far left was slightly crooked.

  The mayor certainly knew how to make an impression. Only when he was sure he had my full attention and had held it for the length of time necessary to fix
his image in my mind, did he settle back into his chair.

  “And this is Diego Goldberg,” Ronnie said. “He’ll be directing the pageant.”

  I couldn’t help but blink at the unique combination of first and last names.

  “Jewish father. Puerto Rican mother,” Goldberg said with a rueful grimace. He appeared to be in his early thirties, with close-cropped black hair and dark brown eyes that were alight with interest. “It’s the first thing everybody asks.”

  “Good to meet you,” I responded, and meant it. His genial manner was an antidote for Ronnie’s ill-disguised hostility. Besides, if not for the fact that he’d volunteered, the board would be trying to rope me into directing the pageant.

  “I hear you taught language arts,” Diego said.

  “I did. Junior high. You?”

  “Eleventh grade. I don’t envy you having to deal with kids just hitting puberty. They’re hard enough to handle at sixteen and seventeen.”

  “This is all very interesting, I’m sure,” Ronnie interrupted, “but we’re here to discuss the fate of our pageant, not compare lesson plans.”

  “I still think it was a mistake to schedule our celebration for mid-August,” the mayor said. “A mistake. How can we hope to draw people away from the casino and compete with Monticello’s annual Bagel Festival?”

  “Not to mention the festivities at Bethel Woods for the anniversary of Woodstock,” Darlene said, sotto voce.

  This remark led, inevitably, to a fast round of “where were you then?” among those old enough to have been at Woodstock. The now iconic music festival had not been held in the village of Woodstock. It had taken place just down the road from Lenape Hollow in the town of Bethel. Back in 1969, I’d already moved out of the area. I’d watched events unfold on the nightly news, along with the rest of the country, hardly able to believe that they were happening less than a dozen miles from the place where I’d grown up. Only much later did I learn that most of the locals hadn’t been all that thrilled to have history made in their backyards. The music and the mud may have been memorable, but so was the massive cleanup.

  “The quasquibicentennial is not in competition with any of those things.” Ronnie sounded impatient, making me suspect they’d had this particular discussion many times before. “Our celebration will provide an alternative form of entertainment for people already in the area and draw in others.”

  The words pipe dream floated into my mind. I let them drift out again.

  Mayor Welby’s gaze swept around the table, pausing briefly on each person before he zeroed in on Gilbert Baxter. “Mr. Director, I’d like to make a motion.” He stood. “I move that we abandon the pageant.”

  “Will someone second that?” Baxter asked.

  If I’d been a member of the board, I’d have supported the mayor’s proposal, but no one with a right to speak uttered so much as a peep, and it died without ever going to a vote. Eyebrows knit together in irritation, Welby resumed his seat.

  Darlene cleared her throat. “Before we discuss this further, don’t you think we should ask Mikki if she’s willing to continue with the project?”

  “She already agreed to take it on.” Ronnie snapped out the words.

  “I didn’t exactly sign a contract,” I reminded her, “and all you asked me to do was edit. Not rewrite. Not produce. Now, I’m not saying I won’t help out where I can, but if the pageant is to be a success, other people need to pitch in.”

  “I’m already donating the venue,” Onslow said.

  “Yes, we all know how generous you are,” Ronnie said. “Do you have staff you can loan us?”

  Although she doesn’t care much for me, she despises Greg Onslow. She’d seated him as far away from her own chair as was humanly possible.

  “I’ll ask for volunteers.”

  He didn’t sound enthusiastic. Neither was I. I’d met a few of the employees of Mongaup Valley Ventures and had not been impressed.

  “What is it you need help with, Mikki?” Tony Welby asked. “The writing? The casting? Where do you need help?”

  “The casting is Diego’s province,” I said with a nod in his direction, “but I’m sure he’d be happy to have someone take on costuming, props, scenery, and lighting. I’m not certain what else is involved in an outdoor production.”

  “That pretty much covers it,” Diego said.

  “As to the writing, I could definitely use some help with the script. Frankly, the pageant that was presented twenty-five years ago is not only boring, it’s riddled with historical errors. It also runs way too long for a modern audience to tolerate.”

  “How long should it be?” Sunny asked.

  “Sixty minutes or less,” Ronnie proclaimed.

  No one disagreed with her.

  I didn’t care for her authoritarian attitude, but that length seemed about right to me, too. I turned to Stacy. “You’re the logical person to work with me on the rewrite.”

  A bemused look on her face, she glanced up from her nonstop texting. “Me? Naw. I don’t know anything about stuff that old.”

  “You’re the town historian. You must have some background in the field.”

  “Well, yeah, but my thesis was on the era of the big hotels. You know—from the 1920s through the 1960s, when people called this area the Borscht Belt and all the big names from vaudeville and Hollywood came here to party and perform.”

  “But you majored in history, right?” Surely she’d learned a little about life before the twentieth century.

  “Theater history,” she corrected me.

  Rather than pound my head on the table, I forced a smile. “Then perhaps you can help Diego mount the production.”

  “Theater history. I’m not into acting or directing.” Her eyes were once again fixed on the tiny screen and keyboard. Her thumbs flew, but I had a feeling that her brain was fast approaching a state of atrophy. Exasperation made me short with her.

  “If you aren’t interested in history, why on earth did you take on the job of town historian?”

  “Uncle Harold said it would look good on my résumé.”

  “Uncle Harold?”

  “Local judge,” Darlene supplied in a stage whisper.

  I glanced around the table. “Helpful suggestions? Anyone?”

  “I plan to use some of my students as actors,” Diego said. “Summer jobs are hard to come by and a lot of them are at loose ends. Maybe one or two of them could help you with the script, too.”

  The idea didn’t thrill me.

  “What about music?” Onslow asked. “That might liven things up.”

  I seized the opportunity. “Thank you for volunteering. You’re in charge of finding out what’s available.”

  Before he could come up with an excuse to get out of the job, the mayor interrupted us. One eye on his watch, he stood. “I apologize for leaving in mid-discussion, but I have another meeting to go to. I do apologize.”

  Nine at night struck me as an odd time to conduct business. Eight o’clock had been pushing it.

  “Any other ideas for help with the writing?” I asked when he’d gone.

  “Shirley can pitch in,” Baxter said. “As long as there are police in the building, she can’t resume her normal duties anyway.”

  “If she’s willing, I’d welcome her assistance. It’s a pity she wasn’t invited to this meeting, since she has a vested interest in the historical society. What about Grace Yarrow?”

  “Who?” Darlene’s blank look told me she didn’t recognize the name.

  “She’s the woman who wrote the original pageant twenty-five years ago. Does anyone know where she is now?”

  Ronnie gave a derisive snort. “I remember her. She was a twit, and unreliable, too.”

  “I think she got a job offer in New York City,” Baxter said. “She had big dreams about becoming a successful playwright.”

  “So much for that idea.” I took a deep breath. “All right, I have another suggestion to make. What if the revised pageant isn’t
just about the founding of Lenape Hollow? In the 1790s, people moved here, built homes, farmed, and raised families. All that’s important, but it’s not exactly edge-of-your-seat drama. What if, instead, the pageant showed Lenape Hollow’s history throughout its entire two hundred and twenty-five years?”

  Darlene perked up and a semblance of interest appeared on other faces. Greg Onslow went so far as to remark that the longer time span would make it easier to add music to the program.

  “Maybe we can get the high school band to play,” Diego suggested.

  “Or that group that plays for dances at the Elks Club?” Sunny countered. I suspected she was being facetious, but maybe not.

  “There are a couple of barbershop quartets in the area,” Baxter mused. “Maybe one of them would be interested. It would all have to be on a volunteer basis, of course. Don’t forget we have a very limited budget.”

  This was the first I’d heard of any budget at all, but I left contemplation of what that meant for another day.

  “We can cover the 1790s and early 1800s fairly quickly.” Especially since I’d leave out fictional conflicts with so-called savages and plagiarized stories about apple seeds. “No more than ten minutes. That’s enough to show the original settlers choosing the location for their village.”

  “On Chestnut Mountain, where the pageant will actually be performed.”

  Onslow’s smug tone annoyed me, but I had to give him points for authenticity.

  “Many soldiers from Lenape Hollow fought in the Civil War,” I continued. “That should be included. And, all along, there was a steady growth in population, with many of the newcomers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century coming here from New York City.”

  “The air was healthier in the mountains,” Darlene said. “This area drew patients suffering from tuberculosis.”

  Baxter grimaced. “Let’s not emphasize that part of our history.”

  His attitude was right in keeping with the way local residents felt when the first sanitarium opened its doors. Plugging the healthful benefits of fresh air to attract tourists was one thing. Connecting those benefits to the fight against a deadly disease was quite another.