Elizabeth informed me, “I already have a photocopy of this with up-to-the-minute changes.”

I sensed that Elizabeth had become a little impatient with her mother’s precise preparations for the big event. I said, “Well, take this anyway.”

She threw the envelope in her canvas bag and said, “I love her, but she drives me nuts – right to the end.”

I replied, “I’m sure our children say the same about us.”

She smiled, then said, “This reminds me – that envelope that my mother wanted me to give you – I spoke to her and apparently she wants me to wait until she’s gone.”

I nodded, thinking it was probably a bill for the rent. Or instructions on what to wear to her funeral.

Elizabeth inquired, “So, are we done here?”

I stood and said, “We’re done here. But you need to find the dress your mother wants to wear. Meanwhile, I’ll put that garden sign in your car, and I’d like you to take that photo portrait, and whatever else you’d like to take with you tonight.”

She stood also, and we looked at each other, then she asked me, “Will you come up with me?”

“No. You should go to her room by yourself.” I added, “And you can take a look at your old room.”

She nodded, then said, “The car’s unlocked.” She left the dining room, and I could hear her making her way up the steep, narrow staircase to the two bedrooms above.

I don’t normally talk myself out of sex, but there is a time and place for everything. Even sex. But maybe I was reading Elizabeth wrong, and she was not actually in the mood for love with a handsome stranger from across the sea.

“Dear Ms. Post, I am the attorney of record for an elderly lady who is dying – I wrote to you about her – and her beautiful daughter is the executrix of her estate, so we are working closely together on this. My question is, Should I have sex with her? (Signed) Confused on Long Island (again).”

I think I know what Ms. Post would say: “Dear COLI, No. P.S. What happened to the ex-wife down the road? P.P.S. You are headed for trouble, buddy.”

Anyway, I took the framed photo portrait off the wall above the fireplace and noticed how dingy the wallpaper around it was. A new decorating project for Mrs. Nasim.

I carried the portrait outside to where Elizabeth had parked her SUV next to my Taurus, and I saw that it was a BMW, which suggested some degree of business success, or a good divorce attorney. I also saw a garment bag hanging in the rear, and I guessed that was Elizabeth’s dinner clothing for tonight.

I opened the cargo compartment and set the portrait facedown, noticing on the paper backing some handwriting. I pulled the portrait toward me and read the words, written with a fountain pen, in what looked like Ethel’s hand: George Henry Allard and Ethel Hope Purvis, married June 13, 1942, St. Mark’s, Locust Valley, Long Island.

And under that, in the same feminine hand, Come home safe, my darling.

And beneath that, in George’s hand, which I also recognized, My sweet wife, I will count the days until we are together again.

I slid the portrait forward and closed the tailgate. Well, I thought, hopefully, they’ll be together again soon.

I thought, too, perhaps cynically, that all marriages start with hope and optimism, love and yearning, but the years take their toll. And in this case, by August of 1943, fourteen months after these words of love and devotion were written, Ethel had succumbed to loneliness, or lust, or had been seduced by money and power – or, recalling that scene ten years ago at the cemetery when Ethel had disappeared from George’s grave and I’d found her at Augustus’ grave – quite possibly she’d actually fallen in love with Augustus Stanhope. Or all of the above.

In any case, Ethel and George had worked it out and spent the next half century together, happily, I think, living in this little house together, raising their daughter, and doing increasingly lighter work on the grand estate whose walls and lonely acres kept the encroaching world away, and kept them, in some mysterious way, a forever-young estate couple who’d met here, fallen in love, married, and never left home.

As I was walking toward the garden path that ran between the gatehouse and the wall, I heard a vehicle crunching the gravel behind me. I turned to see a white Lexus SUV heading toward the open gates, driven by Susan Stanhope Sutter.

The Lexus slowed, and we made eye contact. She’d seen the BMW, of course, and may have known to whom it belonged, but even if she didn’t, she knew I had company of some sort.

It’s awkward making eye contact with the former love of your life, into whose eyes you no longer wish to look, and I didn’t know what to do. Wave? Blow a kiss? Flip the bird? Ms. Post? Help me.

It was Susan who waved, almost perfunctorily, then she accelerated through the gates, making a hard, tire-screeching right onto Grace Lane.

I noticed that my mood had darkened. Why does Susan Sutter still have the power to affect my frame of mind?

I needed to answer that question honestly, before I could move on.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Elizabeth and I filled her BMW with her parents’ personal items that she wanted to take that night, such as photo albums, the family Bible, and other odds and ends that were priceless and irreplaceable. We piled the rest of the personal property, including George’s naval uniforms and Ethel’s wedding gown, into the foyer to be moved another day.

It was very sad for Elizabeth, of course, and I, too, found myself thinking about life and death, and the things we leave behind.

On one of our trips to her vehicle, she retrieved her garment bag and a makeup case and took them up to her mother’s room.

By the time the cuckoo clock struck six, Elizabeth was sitting in her mother’s rocker in the living room, and I was sitting in George’s wingback chair across from her. On the coffee table was the three-page inventory list, most of the items now checked. Also on the table were two mismatched wineglasses that I’d filled from a bottle of Banfi Brunello, one of three Tuscan reds I’d bought in Locust Valley after my Oyster Bay adventure with Anthony. I’d also picked up some cheese and crackers at a food shop and a plastic tray of pre-cut vegetables. I stuck to the Brie.

Elizabeth dipped a carrot and said to me, “You should have some vegetables.”

“Vegetables are a choking hazard.”

She smiled, nibbled at the carrot, then sipped her wine.

We were both tired, and a little sweaty and dusty from the trips to the basement and the attic, and we needed a shower.

She said to me, “I made a seven-thirty reservation at The Creek. Is that all right?”

I informed her, “I think I’m persona non grata there.”

“Really? Why…? Oh… I guess when Susan…”

I finished her sentence: “…shot her Mafia lover.” I smiled and added, “They’re very stuffy there.”

Elizabeth forced a smile, then informed me, “Actually, Susan has rejoined the club. We had lunch there. So maybe it’s not a problem. But we can go to a restaurant.”

I finished my wine and poured another. So let me get this straight – I had been on thin ice at The Creek because I’d brought Mr. Frank Bellarosa, a Mafia gentleman, and his gaudily dressed wife, Anna, to the club for dinner; but it was Susan’s murder of said Mafia gentleman that actually got us booted. And now, Susan Stanhope Sutter – Stanhope is the operative word here – had the nerve to apply for membership and was readmitted. Meanwhile, if I reapplied, I’m sure I’d discover that I was still blackballed.

Nevertheless, I said, “The Creek is fine if you don’t mind a disciplinary letter to you from the Board of Governors.”

She thought about that, smiled, and replied, “That could be fun.”

As I refilled her glass, I also thought about running into everyone I used to know there, including Susan. But what the hell. It could be fun.