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“Oh, they’re not interesting books,” she said. “I just went down to the thrift store and bought a bunch that were the right size.”
I glanced over and saw what she was working on. She was taking the dust jackets off the books and cutting new dust jackets out of pink, lavender, or white paper.
She was piling the dust jackets carelessly in the corner of the room.
I wasn’t exactly a rabid bibliophile, but this bothered me.
“You’re not using the dust jackets?” I asked.
“Oh, no.” She wrinkled her nose slightly. “They’re just so … gaudy. The books themselves are better, but the colors are all wrong for my room. This will be so much nicer, don’t you think?”
Nicer as long as you had no particular desire to read any of the books. With her system, Robinson Crusoe and The Life Cycle of the Dermestid Beetle looked pretty much the same.
“Hey, could you save the covers for me?” I asked. “I have a project I could really use them for.”
“Happy to,” she said. “I was just going to throw them away.”
“Great! Just stack them neatly in this box, and let me know when you’ve got a stack big enough that you want me to haul it away.”
“No problem,” she said. “You can take those now.”
I set one of the boxes the books had come out of where it would be handy. Then I gathered up the twenty or so covers she’d already discarded, stacked them loosely, and carried them down via the back stairs, waving at the Quilt Ladies as I passed.
“You heard about the photographer at ten tomorrow?” I stopped to say.
“We’ll be ready!” Vicky sang out.
Nice to see someone was optimistic. They did seem to be working frantically on something. A quilt in Christmassy fabrics of red and green, with a lot of gold metallic tracery on them. But whether or not the room looked exactly as they wanted it to, it should look fine in the photographs.
Down in the garage I found a box for the discarded covers.
“I don’t know why I care,” I muttered. There probably weren’t any valuable books in there. Chances were, people who cared about dust jackets would turn up their noses at Violet’s book collection.
But it bothered me, so if possible, I’d try to reunite them at the end of the show house.
Of course, there was always the chance she’d sell the books back to the thrift shop without the covers at the end of the show. Maybe I should talk her into donating them to the library, for the tax break. She’d probably go for that. And I could give our head librarian a heads-up that the dust jackets would be arriving separately.
Back into the house. Eustace had now put one or two dishes, vases, or bits of glassware on every shelf in his ever-so-many cabinets. I paused to watch him for a minute or two. He was now standing and studying the effect, pausing every once in a while to switch a couple of items, or adjust one a few millimeters in one direction or another.
“It’s just not right,” he said. “It’s too much of a muchness. What else can I put in these wretched cabinets?”
“Well,” I said. “In my kitchen, a lot of that space would be given over to food. Teas, spices, ca
Eustace’s face froze for a moment, then he beamed.
“You’re a genius! Yes! Decorative tea caddies! Elegant spice jars! And perhaps a few vintage grocery items! I must go shopping!”
He grabbed up his coat, hat, and scarf and dashed toward the garage, presumably heading for the back door there.
“A genius,” I murmured. “I like that.”
In the great room, Mother was rearranging the logs in the fireplace into a more pleasing configuration while Tomás and Mateo dabbed little bits of gold on things.
In the dining room, Linda had assembled several dozen pieces of wooden or plastic fruit and was painting them all gold. Another theme. I should probably refrain from pointing out what happened to King Midas.
I grabbed my coat and hat from the coat closet. I didn’t have to take off for the rehearsal for fifteen minutes or so, but with all the designers focused on something, now seemed a good time to make my escape.
“You heading out?” Randall appeared from the basement.
“Family stuff. Are you—”
My phone rang. It was Stanley Denton
“Remember that so-called charity you asked me to check out?” he said. “Designers of the Future?”
“So-called? What have you found out about it?”
“Not a whole lot, but enough to be very suspicious.”
“Hang on,” I said. “Let me put you on speaker so Randall Shiffley can hear.”
“Okay.”
“Hey, Stanley,” Randall said. “What’s up?”
“Meg had me look into the charity Clay Spottiswood designated to receive the proceeds if he won the contest,” Stanley said.
Randall looked puzzled and glanced at me.
“Because I’d never heard of it, and someone told me Clay had founded it, and it didn’t seem in character for him,” I explained.
“Good instincts,” Stanley said. “I can’t quite prove it yet, but I have reason to believe it was pretty much a sham. I haven’t been able to put my hands on any paperwork about the organization—”
“You think maybe there isn’t any?” I asked.
“Good possibility,” Stanley said.
“Didn’t I give you the form he gave me?” Randall asked.
“You did,” Stanley said. “But it’s a forgery. The tax-exempt number on it belongs to the Vietnam Veterans of America.”
“He’s scum,” Randall muttered.
“I talked to one of Clay’s clients,” Stanley went on. “A very wealthy man who doesn’t want his name attached to any of this, but I believe him. Clay hit him up for a donation to his charity but he never did produce any paperwork. Nothing like a business plan or a budget. Only thing he could remember was Clay bragging about what a low salary he was going to pay himself for ru
“So Clay was trying to con us into putting half the show house proceeds into his own pocket,” Randall said. “Meg, you’re allowed to say ‘I told you so’ now.”
“Did she predict Clay would try to pull something like that?”
“No,” Randall said. “But she did tell me we ought to get a lot more detailed contracts for these show house participants. Next year, I’ll make sure I listen to her.”
Probably not the best time to mention that next year I pla
“So does this have anything to do with Clay’s murder?” Randall asked.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“I’m going to fill Chief Burke in, just in case,” Stanley said. “Because you never know what little bit of information will crack his case. See you later.”
With that he hung up.
“And before you ask, I’m off to fetch the mattress for Clay’s room,” Randall said as he strode down the hallway. “And the sheets.”
As I was standing in the foyer, putting my coat on, Sarah appeared in the doorway of her study.
“You’re leaving?”
“Important family stuff,” I said. “Back in a couple of hours. How’s it going?”
“Getting close,” Sarah said. “I decided I needed a lot more books on the shelves. After all, it’s a study.”
I winced, and stepped farther into the room so I could see what she was doing to her books, and whether I needed to rescue another flock of unloved dust jackets.
But to my delight, Sarah was filling her shelves with real books in their natural state. Many of them had dust jackets, and I had to admit that some of the individual dust jackets were gaudy. But once she arranged them on the shelves, the individual jackets blended into a pleasing mosaic. And some of the books were jacketless, shabby, and obviously much read, but they also blended in and added to the patina.
I found myself remembering a period, from when I was nine or ten until I went off to college, when Mother and Dad would often take me with them to Virginia’s Garden Week or any other event that opened other people’s homes for tours by the paying public. Mother was interested in the décor, of course, and Dad went along because many of the houses had beautiful gardens. He was prone to complaining in the car afterward if not enough of the houses had landscaping worth looking at. I wasn’t that keen on any of it, though I did find it rather interesting to snoop into how other people lived. I only came along because I didn’t want to be left home with Rob and the babysitter—or later, as Rob’s babysitter. Mother always said that if she lost track of Dad and me in one of the houses, she’d think back over the rooms she’d seen. If one of them had books in it, she’d head back there, and would find the two of us standing side by side in front of the shelves, browsing the books—both of us with our hands clasped behind our backs, because you weren’t supposed to touch anything, and leaning forward to read the titles. And if there weren’t any books, we’d be outside, kicking our heels till she emerged.