“I think that compared to some of the nursing homes I’ve photographed, it’s heaven.”

“Why did you choose to photograph nursing homes?” Dr. Lane asked.

“It was an assignment for a magazine.”

“If you ever wanted to do a ‘shoot’ here-that is the expression, isn’t it?-I’m sure it could be arranged,” he offered.

“I’ll certainly keep that in mind,” Maggie replied.

“When we learned you were coming, we so hoped to have you sit at our table,” Odile Lane said and then sighed, “but Mrs. Shipley wasn’t having any of it. She said she wanted you with her friends, at her usual table.” She wagged her finger at Greta Shipley. “Naughty, naughty,” she trilled.

Maggie saw Mrs. Shipley’s lips tighten. “Maggie,” she said abruptly, “I want you to meet some of my other friends.”

A few minutes later soft chimes announced that dinner was being served.

Greta Shipley took Maggie’s arm as they walked down the corridor to the dining room, and Maggie couldn’t help but notice a distinct quiver in her movement.

“Mrs. Shipley, are you sure you don’t feel ill?” Maggie asked.

“No, not a bit. It’s just that it’s such a pleasure to have you here. I can see why Nuala was so happy and excited when you came back into her life again.”

There were ten tables in the dining room, each with place settings for eight people. “Oh, tonight they’re using the Limoges china and the white linen,” Mrs. Shipley said with satisfaction. “Some of the other settings are a little too elaborate for my taste.”

Another beautiful room, Maggie thought. From what she had read of this mansion, the original banquet table for this room had seated sixty people.

“When the house was renovated and refurbished, the draperies were copied from the ones in the state dining room of the White House,” Mrs. Shipley told her as they took their seats. “Now, Maggie, you must meet your dinner companions.”

Maggie was seated at Greta Shipley’s right. The woman next to her was Letitia Bainbridge, who opened the conversation by saying, “You’re so pretty. I understand from Greta that you’re not married. Is there anyone special in your life?”

“No,” Maggie said with a smile, as the familiar ache stabbed at her.

“Excellent,” Mrs. Bainbridge said decisively. “I have a grandson I’d like to introduce to you. When he was a teenager I used to think he was a bit dim. Long hair and a guitar, all that. Dear God! But now, at thirty-five, he’s everything anyone could hope for. He’s president of his own company, doing something important with computers.”

“Letitia the matchmaker,” one of the others said, laughing.

“I’ve met the grandson. Forget it,” Greta Shipley whispered to Maggie, then in a normal tone introduced her to the others- three women and two men. “I managed to snare the Buckleys and the Crenshaws for our table,” she said. “One problem in any of these places is that they tend to become a pavilion of women, so that getting any male conversation becomes a struggle.”

It proved to be an interesting, lively group at the table, and Maggie kept asking herself why Nuala had changed her mind so abruptly about living here. Surely she wouldn’t have done it because she thought I needed the house, she reasoned. She knew Dad left me a little money, and I can take care of myself. Then why?

Letitia Bainbridge was particularly amusing as she told stories of Newport when she was young. “There was so much Anglomania then,” she said, sighing. “All the mothers were anxious to marry their daughters off to English nobility. Poor Consuelo Vanderbilt-her mother threatened to commit suicide if she didn’t marry the Duke of Marlborough. She finally did, and stuck it out for twenty years. Then she divorced him and married a French intellectual, Jacques Balsan, and was finally happy.

“And there was that dreadful Squire Moore. Everyone knew he came from nothing, but to hear him talk he was a direct descendant of Brian Boru. But he did have a bit of charm, and at least the pretense of a title, so of course he married well. And I suppose there isn’t much difference between impoverished nobility marrying an American heiress and an impoverished Mayflower descendant marrying a self-made millionaire. The difference is that Squire’s god was money and he’d do anything to accumulate it. And unfortunately, that characteristic has shown up in a number of his descendants.”

It was over dessert that Anna Pritchard, who was recovering from a hip operation, joked, “Greta, when I was walking with Mrs. Lane this morning, guess who I saw? Eleanor Chandler. She was with Dr. Lane. Of course, I know she didn’t recognize me, so I didn’t say anything to her. But she was admiring your apartment. The maid had just cleaned it, and the door was open.”

“Eleanor Chandler,” Letitia Bainbridge mused. “She went to school with my daughter. A rather forceful person, if I’m not mistaken. Is she thinking of coming here?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Pritchard said, “but I can’t imagine any other reason she’d be looking around. Greta, you’d better change your locks. If Eleanor wants your apartment, she’d think nothing of having you dispossessed.”

“Let her try,” Greta Shipley said with a hearty laugh.

When Maggie left, Mrs. Shipley insisted on walking her to the door.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Maggie urged. “I know you’re rather tired.”

“Never mind. I’ll have my meals sent up tomorrow and give myself a lazy day.”

“Then I’m going to call you tomorrow, and I’d better find you doing just that.”

Maggie kissed the soft, almost translucent cheek of the older woman. “Till tomorrow,” she said.

Thursday, October 3rd

32

In the six days since Nuala Moore had been found murdered in her home, Chief of Police Chet Brower’s initial instinct had become a certainty, at least in his own mind. No random thief had committed that crime, of that he was now sure. It had to be someone who knew Mrs. Moore, probably someone she trusted. But who? And what was the motive? he asked himself.

It was Brower’s habit to think through such questions out loud with Detective Jim Haggerty. On Thursday morning, he called Haggerty into his office to review the situation.

“Mrs. Moore may have left her door unlocked, and in that case anyone could have walked in. On the other hand, she might very well have opened it for someone she knew. Either way, there was no sign of forced entry.”

Jim Haggerty had worked with Brower for fifteen years. He knew he was being used as a sounding board, so while he had his own opinions, he would wait to share them. He had never forgotten overhearing a neighbor describe him once, saying, “Jim may look more like a grocery clerk than a cop, but he thinks like a cop.”

He knew that the remark was meant as a compliment of sorts. He also knew that it wasn’t totally unjustified-his mild, bespectacled appearance was not exactly a Hollywood casting director’s image of supercop. But that disparity sometimes worked to his advantage. His benign demeanor tended to make people more comfortable around him, so they relaxed and talked freely.

“Let’s proceed on the premise that it was someone she knew,” Brower continued, his brow creased with thought. “That opens the suspect list to nearly everyone in Newport. Mrs. Moore was well liked and active in the community. Her latest project was to give art lessons at that Latham Manor place.”

Haggerty knew that his boss did not approve of Latham Manor or of places like it. He was bothered by the idea of senior citizens investing that much nonrefundable money in a kind of gamble that they would live long enough to make the investment worthwhile. His own opinion was that since Brower’s mother-in-law had been living with him for almost twenty years now, the chief was just plain envious of anyone whose parent could afford to live out her declining years in a luxurious residence instead of her child’s guest bedroom.