And One to Die On(35)

Lydia Acken walked over to the letters on the wall, touched the shiny surface of the T, and shook her head.

“Somehow, I wouldn’t have thought this was Tasheba’s style. Of course, it may not be out here for her. It may be out here for us. One more prop to make the auction a success.”

“Maybe Tasheba Kent has gone a little senile,” Gregor said. “At a hundred years old, she’d be entitled.”

“She might be entitled, but I know it hasn’t happened,” Lydia said. “I speak to her on the phone quite often. She’s in remarkably good shape for somebody her age. I had an aunt who died at seventy-five who wasn’t anywhere near as alert.”

“I think she’s practicing voodoo,” somebody said from the living room doorway.

Gregor and Lydia turned around to see Hannah Graham, wearing what might have been the single oddest piece of clothing Gregor had ever encountered. It seemed to be made of round plastic discs, bone white but painted over with designs in metallic blue and red and green, held together with white metal staples. It was very short, riding high on Hannah’s thighs, showing off skeletal legs with bright blue veins laced through them. It was both backless and strapless, exposing arms as thin as pipe cleaners and a back whose skin was so dry it looked like sandpaper. The whole extraordinary ensemble was set off by a pair of spike-heeled sandals at least four inches high, that Hannah Graham seemed to have trouble walking on.

Hannah Graham came into the room and picked up one of the quilted crepe-paper-and-cardboard happy faces. She put it down again and went over to look at the blue-and-white streamers.

“My God,” she said. “What a hokey lot of nonsense. I wonder how she thinks she’s going to get away with it.”

“I don’t think she’s trying to get away with anything,” Lydia said stiffly. “I don’t think any of these things here were her idea. They were probably put out by Miss Dart or Mr. Marsh.”

Hannah shot Lydia a cynical look. “I’ll bet Miss Dart doesn’t do a thing around here without permission. I’ll bet my father doesn’t either. He’s not talking to me, by the way.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lydia said. “We’ve barely got here. He hasn’t had a chance.”

“I’ve given him several chances,” Hannah countered. “He runs away every time he sees me coming. He locks himself in bathrooms. But he won’t be able to avoid me all weekend. I’m faster than he is.”

Oh, wonderful, Gregor thought. This is going to be just as bad as I feared. Then he looked toward the living room door again and saw a very young woman come in, someone he had not met, a girlish-looking woman with red-gold hair in a conservative long dress. Behind her were two men, the older in a tuxedo like Gregor’s own, the younger in a plain blue suit.

“Oh,” the young woman said. “This must be the right place for us to go.”

Hannah Graham was giving the young woman a hard look, one of the hardest Gregor had ever seen. It was a river of pure hate, made stronger by the fact that Hannah was not going to get a chance to do anything about it. Hannah had dieted and exercised and gone under the knife enough so that she looked nothing at all like an ordinary woman in her late fifties, but she looked nothing at all like a woman in her twenties, and that was what she was trying to look like. This was a woman in her twenties, and it showed.

Lydia Acken came forward with her hand outstretched. “How do you do,” she said. “I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Lydia Acken.”

“We haven’t met but we’ve talked,” the young woman said. “I’m Mathilda Frazier, from the Halbard Auction House.”

“Oh, yes,” Lydia said.

Mathilda turned to the two men behind her. “The tall one is Kelly Pratt—”

“Kelly and I have met many times,” Lydia said.

“—and the other one is Richard Fenster. He’s a very important collector and dealer of movie memorabilia.”

“I know Richard Fenster.” Bennis came in with Carlton Ji in tow. She was wearing a strapless red sheath that seemed molded to her, and Carlton Ji looked stoned. “Richard deals in memorabilia from science fiction and fantasy movies,” Bennis went on. “We’ve been in touch.”

Gregor looked around and realized that they were all there, all the people who had been on the guest list, everybody who was expected for this party except for the people who actually lived in the house. The clock on the wall above the Happy Birthday letters said five minutes after seven. Gregor wondered where Geraldine Dart was.