“And how long did it take for her to become irritating?” Daria asked.
Susan grimaced. “About a week.”
“Then you’re more tolerant than I am. I put up with it for three days and then told her I needed to be alone-sounded a bit too much like Greta Garbo to be believable-which might be the reason why she didn’t believe me and just kept on coming over. I finally just stopped paying any attention to her and went on with what I was doing. It was rude, but I didn’t think I had any alternative.”
Susan nodded. “That’s what I did, too. And then, when she died, I realized that I didn’t really know very much about her even though she had talked and talked and talked about herself. I guess I wasn’t listening.”
“It may have had nothing to do with you. She didn’t have much of a life.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Well, what did she have?”
“A husband, a house, a-”
“And that’s all they were for her-accessories. They weren’t serious interests.”
“You don’t think she took her marriage seriously?”
“Oh, I think that’s the one thing in her life that she took seriously. So seriously that when I read the article about her murder in the paper, I assumed Donald had killed her.” Daria walked over to the window and bent a copper wire coiled branch on a tiny evergreen. “Can’t say I would have blamed him if he had.”
“Why?”
“She was holding him back.”
Susan leaned forward. “Really?”
“Yes. He could have been one of the most successful businessmen in this state, but she quite simply was not up to the task of being the wife of someone like that.”
“Really?” Susan repeated.
“Absolutely.”
“Did he tell you this?” Susan was thinking that it sounded like something that might come from the inflated ego of Donald Baines.
“No, his mother did. She’s a remarkable woman. Do you know her?”
“We knew each other a bit years ago.”
“Well, I think she’s wonderful. A self-made woman. She’s smart and funny, a real people person. Not something anyone would say about her daughter-in-law.”
“Nor her son,” Susan added. “I mean, he does try, but there’s no warmth there, is there?”
“Well, Blaine is remarkable. Her husband left her when Donald was just a baby and she went to work as a secretary for some little real estate agency somewhere. She got her license at night and worked during the day, accepting the free rent of an apartment above the office as part of the payment for her job. She bought that agency less than two years after she got her license. That’s how well she did. She opened a branch office in a better community less than a year later and began Blaine Baines Executive Homes and Estates before Donald was ten years old! She was completely focused. They lived in that small apartment until Blaine Baines Executive Homes and Estates was making money-big-time.”
“You like her a lot.”
“I admire her drive, her determination, her energy. And Nadine possessed none of those qualities.”
Susan sipped her coffee and didn’t say anything. She was thinking about a woman who could move up from poverty and create a successful statewide business in less than ten years-and leave her son living in a tiny apartment the entire time. Maybe it wasn’t so surprising that Donald had married a woman with less ambition.
“She’s also interested in gardening. Of course, she doesn’t have lots of time now, but when she retires, she’s planning on creating a vegetable-flower garden at her house-very Rosalind Creasy.”
“So she’s seen this?” Susan looked out the window and wondered if, perhaps, there was room for a rustic pergola in her backyard.
“Not yet, but she was in on the planning. She’s always saying she’ll stop by, but she’s a very busy woman and it’s difficult to get together. We keep in touch, but mostly by phone.”
Susan was reminded of the phone messages Donald’s mother had left for him. “Do you have any idea how she felt about Nadine?”
“She was much too diplomatic to make disparaging remarks in public but, as I said before, she thought Nadine was holding Donald back. The truth is, I got the impression that she wasn’t particularly impressed by her son’s choice of wife.”
“Did Nadine like her?”
Daria looked up and seemed to consider this question. “You, know, I’m not so sure. She never said anything negative about her mother-in-law per se-although she used to blame her for Donald’s many late nights of work. I always thought that was a bit odd.”
“Why?”
“Well, in the first place, all real estate agents work strange hours showing people homes. She should have known that when they got married, or at least adjusted to it over the years. And, to tell you the truth, I figured that Donald was happy to be working away from home. That way he didn’t have to waste his entire life listening to Nadine babble on and on.” Daria stood up. “I hate to be rude, but I’m teaching a class on bonsai at the New York Horticultural Society in a few hours and I need to shower and get into the city.”
Susan took the hint. “Of course. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I should leave anyway. I have other people to speak to-including your neighbor at number twenty-seven. I think her name is Sophie Kincaid. Will I find her house if I keep going on up this road?”
Daria laughed. “Oh, you’ll find her up the road, all right. But take everything she tells you with a big grain of salt.”
“Why?”
“I don’t listen to a whole lot of gossip, but it was hard to live in this town a few years ago without knowing that Sophie and Donald were a hot item.”
TWENTY
SUSAN HAD NO TROUBLE FINDING HER NEXT STOP: IT WAS less than a half mile away. She had spent the short drive contemplating how to bring up Donald’s name since ostensibly her purpose was to find out about Nadine. But nothing appropriate had come to her, and now she was here.
The Kincaid home was built in the same style as the one she had just left, but the white trim had been painted a dusky green and the foundation was planted with common evergreens. Susan parked, walked up the steps, and knocked on the front door.
It was opened so quickly that she couldn’t help but wonder if Sophie Kincaid had been waiting nearby, anticipating her approach.
“Hi,” Susan began.
“You must be Susan Henshaw. I’m Sophie Kincaid. Please come in and tell me how dear Donald is doing. I can’t tell you how worried I’ve been.”
Susan smiled and followed Sophie through the foyer and into her living room where a small plasma screen television had been hung in the place of honor over the formal fireplace. They continued on through what Susan assumed would be called the library (shelves and books lined the walls and a television was set upon a walnut console), to the media room (massive plasma screen television on one wall, a complicated looking music system on the other, CDs and DVDs everywhere), through the media room and into a playroom (toys of all shapes and sizes shared the room with a big screen television and a cabinet filled with more videotapes than she had ever seen collected in one place outside of Blockbuster Video), through the playroom and into a sunroom where a tiny white television was tucked on a shelf beneath a wrought iron table draped with a brightly striped tablecloth. Each room had been opulently decorated. She probably wouldn’t even have noticed the televisions if they hadn’t all been turned on.
Sophie Kincaid sat down on a couch upholstered in a brilliant tropical print and Susan perched on a chair nearby, a surfeit of pillows making it impossible for her to lean back comfortably.
“This is a huge house,” Susan said.
“Yes, six bedrooms, seven full baths.”
“Really? How many children do you have?”
“One. But he won’t bother us. He’s away at boarding school.”