The Marsh Madness

*

NORMAL DIDN’T LAST all that long. For one thing, Uncle Lucky and his fairly new wife, my friend Karen Smith, arrived without warning and with Walter the Pug. Apparently, they had pressing business elsewhere and no pet accommodation. Would I take him? That was fine. Walter is actually quite a soothing little guy. It’s hard to remain glum in his presence. I patted his thick velvety fur and he scampered around, turning in circles and attempting to wag his curly nub of a tail.

The truth is, although he’s Karen’s beloved pooch, he was with me a lot and I would have been very happy to offer him a forever home.

I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

With the definite exception of Good Cat and Bad Cat, Walter is popular and welcome at Van Alst House. I’m sure I’ve seen Vera almost smile at the sight of him. The signora was always cooking up endless dishes of chicken livers for him. The fondness was reciprocated.

After breakfast, I headed back to my heavenly little attic rooms to do some research. Walter hotfooted it up the stairs ahead of me and with a snort made himself at home in the middle of the flower-sprigged quilt. A Siamese stalked off in a huff, promising revenge, but leaving a warm spot on the quilt for Walter to press his wrinkled mug into and inhale noisily.

Another Siamese raised a paw from under the bed and barely missed Walter’s muzzle. He scrambled for safety on higher ground and settled on my pillow.

I got my legs out of reach and did a bit of searching, setting up a few new Google Alerts of my own. In a moment of weakness I actually browsed through the images, even though I knew that was morbid.

None of the images that showed up were of Chadwick though. He seemed quite reclusive compared to his famous uncle. It was an hour or so later when one of the pings produced a link to a television story. There wasn’t much new, except that Chadwick’s employees seemed really choked up by the news when interviewers kept sticking mics under their noses. I found that hard to believe and felt guilty for thinking it.

Something odd tickled the edge of my mind, and I rewatched the television interviews of the employees from the Country Club and Spa.

As I played the clip of a reporter hounding Chadwick’s assistant and spokesperson identified as Lisa, I did a double take. I hadn’t caught Lisa’s last name, but this person, a red-eyed, red-nosed, choked-up woman, was definitely not Miss Troy. But I guess if you have bags of money, you might need a fleet of assistants and more than one Lisa.

I searched online for Lisa Troy and found a number of accomplished women but not the skittish creature who had helped host us. But what did that matter? Lisa was a popular name. Lots of people don’t have much of an Internet presence. For instance, my relatives were very careful to avoid it, and the rest of us should be grateful for that.

Back to Chadwick. But there was something strange there too. When I searched for images of the dead heir, Chadwick’s heavy-lidded image never came up. Not even once. I could understand how Lisa and my uncles could avoid the spotlight, but the heir of the famous Magnus Kauffman and the man behind the success of the Country Club and Spa should show up somewhere. He didn’t seek media attention, but he had been running a business and he must have been caught on camera somewhere, at something. Another man, reddish-blond and stocky, appeared over and over, smiling shyly and never quite gazing at the camera. Must have been someone else with the same name. There were sure to be other Chadwick Kauffmans out there somewhere. Right now I had bigger issues to worry about.

I was sorry that Chadwick Kauffman died a horrible death, but we were done with the Kauffman family. If they’d had any more mint-condition mysteries up for grabs, that would be different, but there was only the Marsh collection. The books in the Manhattan residence were lost to Vera’s library.