Day Shift

It was as though he’d slapped Lewis in the face. The man got very quiet and still, so abruptly it was even more shocking than his previous pugnacity. “You’re saying this man was my father’s friend?” Lewis gave Tommy a very sharp once-over. “All right, come in. It’s very hot outside. And these two… ladies… are?”

“I’m Rick’s sister Amanda. This is my grandfather’s intended, Suzie Lee.” At the last second, Olivia had realized she had no idea what Suzie’s true last name was, and she’d supplied one on the spur of the moment. Suzie looked up at Lewis with a smile, and Olivia had to admire the old woman’s adaptability.

“I hope you don’t mind me coming along,” Suzie said, generating so much charm that Olivia almost had to take a step back. “Tommy and I go everywhere together.”

“Let me go turn off the television,” Lewis said abruptly, and vanished. When he reappeared, Bertha abruptly retreated to the back of the house. It was clear the maid was washing her hands of the situation.

Her son — he must be, their mouths and eyes were so alike — was folding up the ladder and giving the newcomers a comprehensive stare, starting with Olivia’s tight blue jeans. But he left, too, carrying the ladder carefully down the hall to the back of the house.

Good. Now there were no witnesses, whatever happened.

Lewis reappeared, so changed it was like he’d taken a hit of laughing gas. He’d morphed into the gracious master of the manor. “There’s an elevator right back here for you, if you’d prefer,” he said. If he’d had mustaches, he’d have been twirling them. “I often take it myself.”

“Thanks,” said Tommy gruffly. “The little lady has a problem with stairs.”

Every effort had been made to make the tiny elevator unobtrusive. Even the door was designed to look like a real wood door. Olivia said, “I’ll just take the stairs.”

She met them at the top and confirmed that the elevator door was right by the study door. She was smiling when the elevator door dinged open and they all appeared.

Lewis’s new hospitality made Olivia deeply suspicious, and her anxiety was confirmed when she caught Barry’s expression. Behind Lewis’s back, he made an urgent face at her. She didn’t know exactly what it meant, but nothing good. She went on full alert.

Tommy got off the elevator with extra care and turned to extend his hand to Suzie. She took it with a smile. Somehow, in the Goldthorpe mansion, they looked smaller and frailer and less in control of their destinies than they had in the Midnight Hotel. Tommy seemed to be aware of it, too. In a patronizing tone, he said, “This is a nice house, young man.” He looked around him in a lordly way. “I haven’t been here in years,” he added, perhaps thinking that he should have visited at least a few times if he’d been such a good friend of Morton’s.

“I’m so glad you like it,” Lewis said smoothly.

Obviously, Lewis suspected they weren’t what they seemed. Olivia didn’t know what he suspected or what to do about it. For the moment, she decided to go along with the plan. Lewis was not a good pretender. She was.

“I’m really sorry about your mom,” she said. Lewis’s glasses winked as he swung his head around to glare at her.

And she saw Barry blink and look away, just for a second.

Lewis was more dangerous than he seemed, apparently.

“She never took good care of herself,” Lewis said brusquely. “She was getting forgetful, too. She was hiding things from me.”

“Hiding things,” Olivia echoed in a murmur with just a hint of a question in it.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “She was getting very… well, paranoid, I’m afraid, and she decided I was after her jewelry. Poor thing,” he added unconvincingly. “I miss her so much.”

“Of course,” Barry said. “Grandpa, can you see the books you loaned Morton? Look carefully. We don’t want to leave one behind.”

Tommy had gone to the shelves to begin his “search.” Suzie began a stilted conversation with Lewis about estate taxes, which only went forward fitfully, because Lewis was watching Tommy like a hawk. Did he think Tommy would try to stuff books down his pants?

Olivia looked around her, registering fact after fact. There was not much furniture. The room was lit from a window on the west wall, casting a pool of light on the large polished desk and the imposing chair behind it. There was an easy chair with a small table and lamp, and there was a huge globe standing in one corner of the room. It hadn’t been visible from the door on Olivia’s previous visit.

Olivia wondered if the globe was Morton Goldthorpe’s idea or if some decorator had told him every man should have a globe in his library. Maybe a bit of both; it was a beautiful thing. The desk was handsome, too; cherry, she thought. The shelves on the south and north walls were stocked with books interspersed with a tennis trophy or two, some business awards, and family pictures. From those pictures, it was evident that Morton had been older than Rachel by at least ten years. He looked very proud of his wife and his children in those portraits of a time long past.