The Cruel Ever After (2 page)

“Sure,” said the woman, pulling a menu out from underneath the reception stand. “Jane Lawless.”

He digested the information, giving nothing away. Holding up his cell, he said, “Do you have a house phone? This thing’s out of juice.”

“Is it a local call?”

“St. Paul.”

She handed him a cordless. “Dial nine to get an outside line.”

Walking over to a quiet corner, he tapped in the gallery number. It rang five times before a woman’s voice answered, “Morgana Beck Gallery.”

“Morgana? It’s Chester Garrity.”

Morgana Beck was Irina’s mother, the owner of the gallery and a visiting professor of the science and ethics of antiquities at Basir University in Ankara, Turkey. Irina had been working for her mother for nearly ten years.

“I need to speak to Irina,” said Chess.

“Not here.”

He shoved a hand into his pocket. “Do you know when she’ll be—”

“I’m with a client right now. Call back later.”

“Could you at least give me some idea of when she’ll be in?”

Morgana and Chess had met on several occasions over the years, but for some reason, the great Morgana Beck didn’t seem to like him.

“She and Steve drove down to Rochester this morning.”

Steve was Irina’s husband. “So, later in the day? Three? Four?”

“Is something wrong? You sound upset.”

“Will she be in at all today?”

“I don’t know. I’m hanging up now.”

Chess turned his back to the receptionist as he cut the line. Morgana understood just how to yank his chain, and seemed to take great pleasure in it. Morgana Beck, a fifty-eight-year-old St. Paul matron, believed down to the soles of her Jimmy Choos that she was better than everyone else. People were always disappointing her, or trying her patience, or boring her into a state of stupefaction. People like Chess.
This
from a woman who’d undergone more cosmetic surgery than Michael Jackson and who had all the personal charisma of a boiled egg.

Pulling his shirt cuffs out from under his jacket sleeves, Chess gave himself a brief pep talk and then turned around and walked back to the receptionist, handing her the phone.

“Is Jane here?”

“She is,” said the receptionist. “But she’s tied up at the moment. If you’d like to make—”

“She’ll see me.”

“If you could give me your name—”

“Garrity.” He allowed himself a small smirk. “Just tell her that her husband is here and wants to talk to her.”

2

“Where are we on the birthday invitations?” asked Jane, easing back in her chair as a waiter poured more coffee into her cup. Coffee was the last thing she needed. She’d been thoroughly buzzed since seven.

“I sent them all out at the beginning of last week,” said Cordelia, gazing through her rhinestone-studded horn-rimmed glasses at her notes. She never went anywhere these days without her Moleskine notebook. In its pages were her overwrought thoughts on life, her to-do lists, and famous quotes—often her own—she wanted marked down for posterity. “What else needs to be done?” She whipped off the glasses, all business today.

“Have you heard from my brother and his wife? They’re coming, right?”

“Haven’t you talked to them?”

Cordelia knew there was a rift between Jane and her brother, she just didn’t know why. “I haven’t talked to him in months.”

“You two are behaving like children. Just bury the hatchet—not in each other’s backs—and get on with it.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You know, Janey, if you told me what was going on, I might be able to help. I’ve had vast experience when it comes to empiric family warfare. Besides, Peter adores me.”

“Everyone adores you.”

“It’s my cross.”

Jane gazed past Cordelia to a table at the rear of the deck. A waiter appeared to be having an extended conversation with a customer who didn’t look happy.

“Excuse me,” she said, getting up. She wove her way through the tables. “Is there a problem?” she asked, moving up next to the waiter.

“You seem to be out of everything,” said a sandy-haired man in a business suit.

“He wanted the lamb stew,” said the waiter, looking apologetic, “but we ran out.”

“So I ordered the Galway corned beef and cabbage. Your waiter just informed me that you’re out of that, too.”

Jane recalled that they’d been shorted on their corned beef order on Monday. “I’m the owner. Let me suggest a couple of specialties you might like. Have you tried our savory beef and mushroom cottage pie? It comes with a cup of potato leek soup and a small salad. Our Cumberland sausage and mash is another favorite. Or you might like today’s fish entrée—pan-fried striped bass in a citrus butter. Comes with sweet potato chips. I sampled it this morning, and it’s wonderful.”

“I suppose the fish,” said the man, glancing at the woman across from him. “If you can make it fast.”

“We can,” said Jane, “and it’s on the house.”

He looked up at her, no longer quite so disgruntled.

“I’m truly sorry for the inconvenience. I want you to be happy with your food. If there are any more problems, just let me know.” She nodded to the waiter, and he took off. On her way back to her table, she spotted a pair of longtime customers—an older couple, with a grandson in Afghanistan.

“Nice to see you,” she said, smiling down at them. “Everything okay with your order?”

“Wonderful as always,” said the woman.

“How’s your grandson doing?”

“He should be home next month,” said the man. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”

“When he’s back, bring him by for a piece of our turtle cake—on me.” The grandson loved sweets.

“We’ll do that,” said the man with a grin.

Sitting down again, Jane picked up her coffee cup and took a sip. She should probably have been working the lunch crowd, seating customers, expediting orders in the kitchen, but because Cordelia had arrived ready to discuss Jane’s father’s birthday “extravaganza,” she had decided to take a break.

Cordelia Thorn was Jane’s oldest and best friend. They’d known each other for so many years that the word “friend” hardly seemed adequate. They were more like family, or perhaps somewhere in between. Jane’s life would be far less colorful without Cordelia’s angst and opinions.

Jane was a restaurateur, Cordelia the creative director of the most prestigious regional theater in the Midwest. They shared a love of food and a personal history that took them all the way back to high school.

On a day like today, with sunlight glinting off the choppy waves of Lake Harriet, a breeze ruffling the leaves, and sailboats, their white sails billowing in the wind, skimming across the water, it was hard to believe problems existed in the world. Yet Jane and her brother were a case in point. She was holding her breath, praying that Peter would come to the party and not turn it into another battlefield. She was also hoping that if he and Sigrid and their daughter, Mia, did show, they could act the role of a happy family for their father’s sake.

“Did you send an invitation to Julia?” asked Jane.

Cordelia glowered. “Yes, with deep reservations.”

“I’m a little worried about her.”

“You should be. She’s a lunatic.”

“I’ve phoned her a couple of times in the past month. She never returned the calls. That’s not like her.”

“Count your blessings.”

“Don’t be such a sourpuss. She’s Dad’s primary care physician now. He considers her a friend of the family. I think he’d be upset if we didn’t include her.”

“Your paterfamilias is a kind man with a bad case of myopia when it comes to Dr. Julia.
I
consider her a nutcase with an obsessive need to wiggle her way back into your personal life. You may have dumped her, but she’s not done with you. Mark my words, Janey, that woman is trouble.”

“What’s going on down there?” asked Jane, pushing out of her chair. This time she stepped over to the wood railing that surrounded the second-floor deck. Several other customers were already up and watching a man, dressed in a medieval monk’s cowl, standing on top of a wooden crate, speaking to a growing crowd of onlookers—or gawkers. Jane strained to hear him, but all she could pick up was the words “spirit” and “deceit.”

Cordelia sidled up next to her. “How lovely. An itinerant preacher. One with a highly evolved sense of style. I wonder where he bought that cowl.”

“You like the Friar Tuck look?”

“Sexy is as sexy does. Now come on back to the table. We’ve still got work to do.”

Jane wasn’t exactly thrilled to have all this commotion going on right underneath her restaurant’s deck, but because the man was on public property, she couldn’t do much about it.

“Hattie’s really looking forward to the party,” said Cordelia, pen poised once again over her notebook.

Hattie Thorn-Lester was Cordelia’s five-year-old niece. She was back living with Cordelia again, this time as her legal ward.

“She’s got her outfit all planned. Black and pink, of course, with her handmade Ziegfeld Follies–ish hat. She wants to make a real visual statement. I can’t blame her. She is, after all, a Thorn.” She stopped, jerked her reading glasses down to the tip of her nose, and gazed over them. “Lord love a duck, I don’t believe my eyes.” She stood, drew her arms wide, and cried, “Chester, dear boy! Is that really you?”

“Chester?” repeated Jane, twisting around. She realized it was pure cliché, but her jaw actually dropped when she saw who was striding toward them. She hadn’t seen Chess Garrity since … since—

Cordelia treated him to her famous bear hug, inching him up off his feet and spinning him around. Chess had put on weight but still wasn’t as big as Cordelia. Cordelia’s girth was legendary, but her strength, when excited, was the stuff of myth.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Cordelia, setting Chess down, holding on to his hands. “You look marvelous.”

“I look older,” he said, flashing Jane a help-me-out-here-before-she-breaks-every-bone-in-my-body look.

Jane pulled out a chair. “I’m stunned.”

He gave her a peck on the cheek, rubbing his arm as he sat down. “I never thought I’d be back. I guess life has a way of changing our plans.”

Cordelia caught the waiter’s eye. “A bottle of your finest champagne. Chop chop.”

Chess looked around, taking in the broad deck packed with customers. “This truly is amazing. Seeing you two again. This restaurant was your dream, right, Jane? The one you talked about all the time. You actually did it. You didn’t squander the money I gave you.”

“She’s got a second dream made manifest, too,” said Cordelia, flapping her napkin before tucking it into her cleavage. “It’s more a of nightclub. In Uptown. It’s an old restored art deco theater. Very classy. You’ll have to come see it. How long will you be in town?”

“A few days.”

Chess was older than Jane, but he had a young face. Even now, he didn’t look his age, although his hair, an implausible though real shade of red, had thinned. He looked prosperous, his once pale, freckled skin now ruddy and tanned, his teeth so white they could blind. And he was a good fifty pounds heavier. Jane recalled that some of his college buddies used to call him Antinous because he looked like the marble sculpture of the famous Greek, the one found in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. A Greek god like face atop a body that packed on the pounds so easily that Chess often starved himself to stay trim. DNA gave, and DNA took away.

“So,” said Chess, pushing his chair back and crossing his legs. “How’s Christine?” He seemed uncomfortable, shifting this way and that. Jane had the sense that he was looking past her, that his mind was someplace else.

“She died,” said Cordelia, lowering her eyes, then glancing uneasily at Jane.

Making no effort to hide his shock, Chess said, “I’m sorry. I thought you two made a great couple.”

“I did, too,” said Jane. “We were together for nearly ten years.”

The champagne arrived. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

Attempting to save the moment, Cordelia said, “So, tell us what you’ve been up to all these years.”

“A little of this, a little of that.”

“Still filthy rich?”

He took a sip of the champagne, then set the glass down next to his napkin. “I’ve made and lost several fortunes since the last time I saw you two. At the moment, I guess you could say I’m between fortunes.”

Jane’s connection to Chess Garrity was an unusual one, but it wasn’t complex. Chess had been a closeted gay man who came from a highly religious—and extremely wealthy—family in Chicago. When the children turned thirty, provided they were married in the Catholic Church and living good lives, they would each inherit nine million dollars. Chess’s father was dead, but his mother made sure her children, all four of them, toed the line. The problem was obvious.

Chess had met Cordelia when he tried out for a show she was directing at the Blackburn Playhouse in Shoreview. This was long before her reign began at the Allen Grimby Repertory Theater in St. Paul. They hit it off immediately. Chess got the part, and over the course of the next few months, he and Cordelia began to talk about his predicament.

That was where Jane came in. The scheme that Chess and Cordelia cooked up all depended on her. Chess and Jane would get married in a church in Lake Forest, Illinois, where his mother lived. Jane would act the blushing bride for as long as it took for Chess to pocket his inheritance. For her time and effort, Chess agreed to pay her three hundred thousand dollars. The money would allow her to convince a bank to give her an even bigger loan to build the Lyme House. People always assumed that her father had financed the restaurant, but back then, Jane and her dad hadn’t been on the best of terms.

The final part of the plan was, as soon as Chess’s nine million was safely tucked away, that he would fly to the Dominican Republic, get a quickie divorce, send Jane the papers, and take off for greener—foreign—pastures. He wanted to travel. See the world. That was his dream.

Jane got cold feet right before the wedding ceremony and had to be dragged by Cordelia and Christine—in her wedding gown and veil—into the limo that took them to the church. Ultimately, though, her marriage to and divorce from Chess Garrity was what had allowed her to make the dream of owning her own restaurant come true. She’d never told another living soul what she’d done to get the financial ball rolling. The only people who knew—and were still alive—were sitting at this table.