The Bourbon Kings

Lizzie took a deep breath. “Listen, thank you. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ll make it work—and I’ll make sure you get paid.”

“I’m really sorry.”

As she ended the call, she leaned in to the glass and tried to see the sheriff’s vehicle.

“—rental company say?”

She turned back to Greta, who was spraying the finished bouquets with floral preservative. “I’m sorry, what—oh, it’s a billing issue.”

“So we’re going to get the extra five hundred champagne flutes?”

“No.” She headed over to the door into the house. “I’m going to go talk to Rosalinda and then break the bad news to Mr. Harris. He’s going to be pissed—but at least we got the tents and the tables and chairs. Glasses we can wash as they come in, and the family’s got to have a hundred or so of their own.”

Greta looked up through those tortoiseshell glasses of hers. “There are close to seven hundred people coming. You really think we can keep up with that demand? With only five hundred flutes?”

“You are not helping.”

Stepping out of the conservatory, she cut through the dining room and headed for the staff hallway. As she pushed her way inside, she stopped dead. Three maids in their gray and white uniforms were clustered together, talking with a great deal of animation but little volume—as if they were a TV show that had had its sound turned down. Miss Aurora was beside them, arms crossed over her chest, and Beatrix Mollie, the head of housekeeping, was next to her. Mr. Harris was standing in the center of the corridor, his diminutive body blocking the way to the kitchen.

Lizzie frowned and approached the butler—and that was when she got a whiff of a smell that, as a farm owner, she had some familiarity with.

An African-American man in a sheriff’s uniform came out of Rosalinda’s office, along with Lane.

“What’s going on?” Lizzie asked, a cold chill shooting through her chest.

Dear Lord, was Rosalinda …

Was that why the hall had smelled so badly this morning? she thought with a pounding heart.

“There’s been a difficulty,” Mr. Harris said. “And it is being handled appropriately.”

Lane met her eyes as he spoke with the deputy and he nodded to her. When she motioned over her shoulder toward the conservatory, he nodded again.

Ms. Mollie made the sign of the cross over her heart. “It comes in threes. Death always comes in threes.”

“Nonsense,” Miss Aurora muttered as if the woman had been wearing her out with that line of reasoning. “God’s plans determine it for us all. Not counting on your fingertips.”

“Threes. Always threes.”

Heading back to the conservatory, Lizzie closed the door behind her and looked at the hundred or so bouquets of pink and white flowers.

“What’s wrong?” Greta asked. “Did something else get left off the order—”

“I think Rosalinda is dead.”

There was a clatter as the spray bottle slipped out of Greta’s hands and bounced on the slate floor, spraying the woman’s work shoes. “What.”

“I don’t know.”

As a stream of German boiled up and out of her partner, Lizzie muttered, “I know, right? I just can’t believe it.”

“When? How?”

“I don’t know, but the sheriff’s here. And they didn’t call for an ambulance.”

“Oh, mein Gott … das ist ja schrecklich!”

With a curse, Lizzie walked over to the view of the garden and stared out at the resplendent green of the cropped grass and the elegant setup for the party. They were seventy-five percent there, and already things were beautiful—especially the glowing heads of the hundreds of late-blooming paper-whites that she and Greta had planted in the beds under the flowering fruit trees.

“I’ve got a really bad feeling about all this,” she heard herself say.

About an hour after Metro Police arrived at Easterly, Lane was allowed to leave the scene for a short period of time. He wanted to talk to Lizzie to let her know what was going on, but he had to take care of Gin first.

The Bradford Family Trusts were all administered and managed out of the Prospect Trust Company, a privately held firm with billions of dollars of assets under their control and a speciality in handling the super-wealthy in Charlemont. As they were not a traditional bank, however, the household checking accounts were run out of the local branch of PNC—and that was where he went with the checkbook he’d taken out of Rosalinda’s desk.

Parking in the lot by the one story boutique building, he wrote the check out as payable to Cash in the amount of seventy-five thousand dollars, forged his father’s name on the signatory line, and endorsed the back as payable to the Washington County Jail.

As soon as he pushed into the beige and white lobby, he was intersected by a young woman in a navy blue suit and discreet jewelry. “Mr. Baldwine, how are you?”

I just found a dead body. Thanks for asking. “Fine, I need to get this check certified?”

“Of course. Come into my office.” Leading him over to a glass enclosure, she shut the door and took a seat behind a tidy desk. “We’re always pleased to help your family.”

He slid the check across the blotter and sat down. “I appreciate it.”

The sound of fingernails tippity-tapping on the computer’s keyboard was mildly annoying, but he had so much bigger fish to fry.