Bitch Slap Read online

  “Uh … ,” I told Neil, “I think I know what this is about. Maybe you should show Glee the rest of the house; I’ll see if I can’t play peacemaker.”

  Glee’s reporter instincts were suddenly on high alert. “What’s up, boss?”

  “It’s just business,” I replied vaguely. “Everyone involved with the merger seems to be getting stressed over the details.”

  “Oh.” Glee lost interest the moment I mentioned the merger. She told Neil, “Sure, show me the house, and we’ll save the best for last.”

  Neil gave me a wink. “Thanks, Mark. See if you can’t pave the way for us in there.” And he escorted Glee down the hallway toward the dining room.

  When they were out of earshot, I turned to the double doors and gave them an officious rap, but the voices within didn’t miss a beat. In fact, the verbal assault between Gillian and Tyler seemed to be building, not slackening, so I decided I would simply have to abandon my manners, take action, and interrupt them. Giving a sharp knock of warning, I then fumbled with the doorknobs. Being unfamiliar with their mechanism, I inadvertently released both doors at once, swinging them wide open as I swooped in from the hall. It was a classic, campy Loretta Young entrance, which I would have found funny were it not for the serious circumstances.

  Both Gillian and Tyler seemed more startled than annoyed by the interruption, turning to look at me with bug-eyed curiosity. Composing herself, Gillian asked archly, “Yes? May I help you?”

  “Sorry,” I said, “the doors sort of got away from me. I don’t mean to intrude, but the conversation seemed to be getting awfully heated in here; we could hear you from the hall. Besides, Gillian”—I tapped my watch—“you have a one o’clock appointment with Glee Savage.”

  “Who?” she asked, as if I were speaking nonsense syllables.

  “The Register’s features editor. She’s here for the background interview on the new house.”

  “Oh, that.” Gillian flicked her wrist. “That’ll have to wait. Something has come up. Your meddlesome ‘forensic accountant’ has supposedly unearthed a few deadly inconsistencies in the books at Ashton Mills. I don’t know whether to be insulted—or amused. Why, the accusation is downright laughable.” Proving her assertion, she gave a loud, false laugh, then told me, “I suggest your accountant learn to check his math. Perhaps he should stop counting on his fingers.”

  Steely-faced, Tyler said, “See, Mark? I told you there was no reasoning with this woman. It’s her way or the highway.”

  “Damn straight, junior.” She flashed him a look that could crack granite.

  “Let me remind you, Mrs. Reece, the merger with Quatro Press is contingent upon my approval of the numbers. You may not like me, but your goals would be better served by a measure of attitude adjustment.”

  She looked him squarely in the eye, then asked him sweetly, “Attitude adjustment? Why, Mr. Pennell, I do believe you can kiss my ass.”

  Tyler was momentarily stunned by her pronouncement; so was I. He sputtered, “You’re … you’re even worse than they say. You’re impossible. And if you’re incapable of conducting business in a businesslike manner, then you’d better understand that business will be conducted without you.” He crossed the room and picked up his briefcase from a side table near the doors. “Perry Schield will be highly interested in learning what transpired here this afternoon. He’s getting cold feet, Mrs. Reece, and frankly, I don’t blame him.” With that, Tyler turned on his heel, huffed out of the room, crossed the foyer, and walked through the front door, slamming it shut behind him.

  Gillian instantly wound herself into a rant, pacing the living room’s stone floor, flailing her arms, sputtering profanities about “that rube from Green Bay.” Workers peered in from the hall, so I moved to the double doors and gently closed them. Crossing my arms, I watched with strained patience as Gillian vented her rage. There was no point in trying to counter her irrational outburst; the best way to quiet her down was to let her wear herself out.

  This was a side of Gillian Reece that I had heard rumors about but had never witnessed. While her behavior was appalling, it was also perversely entertaining, so I watched with a measure of satisfaction, feeling smugly superior, like an adult confronted by a child’s tantrum. Should I declare a time-out and haul her off to the car?

  While musing over the possibilities (e.g., spanking Gillian Reece), my attention shifted from the woman to her living room. Ignoring her hysterics, I took in the magnificent space Neil had created for her—the sumptuous but refined seating area, the massive fireplace, and of course the surrounding bookcases, with their balcony, ladders, and long, elegant windows. Shafts of afternoon daylight angled in from the openings and sliced across the floor.

  “ … so he simply has to go, Mark. He must.”

  “Hmm?” I glanced from the balcony to the fireplace, where Gillian stood, reasonably composed, addressing me from the far side of the room. I asked, “Who has to go?”

  “Tyler Pennell.” She flipped her hands. “Who else?”

  Stepping toward her, I said calmly, “You know as well as I do that that’s impossible. Both companies have contractually agreed to abide by Tyler’s assessment. There’s no pulling out now, especially on the whim of one party.”

  “Whim? Is that what you call this?”

  “Gillian, I don’t want to get into this with you. The specific issues are beyond my grasp, and I need to back out of the debate. This is between you and Perry Schield. I hope the merger is still on track—I’ve always supported it—but the whole question is out of my hands now. The contractual mechanisms are in place, and that’s that.”

  “Ugh.” She slumped onto the arm of an overstuffed armchair. “I wish I could be so philosophical and practical. How do you do it, Mark?”

  “Maybe it’s a guy thing.” I smiled.

  She smirked. “You’re calling me feminine?” Her tone implied revulsion.

  I could think of no safe answer to her query, so I tapped my watch again. “Your interview?”

  “Oh, that.” She slumped. “Can’t we cancel—or at least postpone it?”

  “No, Gillian, we can’t.” I enjoyed bossing her, and for reasons I couldn’t fathom, she seemed to defer to me as an authority figure.

  She whined, “But I’m just not in the mood …”

  “Look, Gillian. You agreed to the interview. I’ve assigned staff to it, and we’ve reserved space for it. Besides, a nice feature on the house could be helpful to Neil’s career.” This last point was a stretch. Neil’s practice was sufficiently well established that a feature in a small-town daily was unlikely to bring droves of new clients to his door, but I reasoned that Gillian might find my pitch persuasive because she seemed genuinely fond of Neil. And I was right.

  “Well,” she conceded, “I suppose I do owe Neil the recognition. He’s given me so much”—she gestured at her surroundings—“I can’t begrudge him a little well-deserved publicity.”

  “He’ll appreciate it. And so do I.” I offered a smile.

  A tentative knock drew our glances to the closed doors.

  I told Gillian, “That’s probably Neil now.”

  “Waiting in the wings, no doubt.” She breathed a little sigh of resignation, stood, and positioned herself at the fireplace like royalty at a throne.

  I crossed to the opposite side of the room and cracked the doors open.

  Neil peeked in. Under his breath, he asked, “Still on the warpath?”

  “No, no”—I chuckled, opening the door wide—“everything’s fine.”

  Neil turned to Glee, who was standing behind him. “They’re ready for us. Come on in. I want you to see this.”

  “Oh, Neil,” she said, following him into the room, “it’s everything you promised—and more!”

  Moving toward the center of the room, Neil acknowledged, “It did turn out beautifully. I’m pleased.”

  “Pleased?” asked Glee, turning to take in the whole space, gazing at the library balcony. “It’s
first-rate, simply stunning. I can’t wait to get a photographer in here. Mark, it’s page-one material, Sunday’s Trends section.”

  “Great idea, Glee. It’s quite a house. And now, perhaps you’d like to meet the proud owner.” I escorted her across the room, around Neil, toward the fireplace, where Gillian still stood, erect and queenly.

  “With pleasure,” Glee assured me.

  “Gillian,” I said, “I’d like you to meet the Register’s features editor, Glee Savage. And, Glee, this is Gillian Reece of Ashton Mills.”

  The two women each took a step toward the other, pausing some six feet apart.

  “Glee?” said Gillian, stepping closer. “Glee Buttles?”

  Glee closed the distance between them, then froze. “Gill?” she asked. “Gill Dermody?” Without hesitation, she lifted her right hand. I presumed she was offering a handshake, but I was dead wrong. No, Glee raised her hand higher, stretching her arm behind her for a moment, then hauled off and smacked Gillian in the face with a fierce, stinging bitch slap.

  Gillian, Neil, and I watched in slack-jawed silence as Glee turned and marched out of the room, continuing through the foyer.

  Her heels snapped at the stone floor.

  I swear I saw sparks.

  Chapter Six

  Neil and I struggled for words as Gillian Reece watched Glee Savage’s steamy exit. “I can’t begin to apologize … ,” said one of us. “I can’t imagine what got into her … ,” said the other.

  “Well,” said Gillian, lifting her fingers to the hot, red welt on her cheek, “at least the interview was mercifully brief.”

  Her calm reaction to Glee’s assault struck me as entirely out of character. I would not have been surprised had she torn after Glee, tackled her in front of the house, and thrown her to the ground, rolling toward the street in a maelstrom of thrashing limbs and torn hair. Instead, her stolid attitude suggested she had found Glee’s outburst unremarkable.

  I asked her, “What was that all about?”

  “Who knows?” Gillian shrugged. “No telling with that woman.”

  With a note of understatement, Neil said, “I gather you two have met before.”

  “We knew each other in college.” She paused before adding a self-evident afterthought. “We didn’t get along.”

  Gillian made it clear she had nothing more to say, so Neil and I extended our apologies, then left.

  Returning to my car, we speculated as to the root of the enmity we had witnessed, but we could come up with nothing that would motivate the attack, especially from Glee, whose behavior had been consistently ladylike and cheery during the entire four years I had worked with her. I told Neil, “Gillian doesn’t seem willing to enlighten us, but I bet Glee will.”

  “Is she in trouble?” asked Neil. “I mean, at the office?”

  Good question. “I want to hear what she has to say first.”

  I didn’t think it would be productive to confront Glee with my questions right away—better to let her calm down. So I drove Neil downtown, dropped him at his office, and decided to explore the lead Esmond Reece had given me regarding Tamra Thaine’s makeover of a compound that lay just beyond the city line.

  Heading west on First Avenue (the Reece house was on the other end of town), I followed the main street as it narrowed, then curved, becoming a county highway. A few frosty nights had left their mark on the rural landscape, turning fields golden and treetops crimson. A blue, cool sky arched overhead with such pristine clarity, it was easy to imagine Dumont as the center of a benevolent universe.

  But something was brewing, at least in the cosmic sense, and I wasn’t sure what. My quiet, routine day had now been marred by several sour notes—all of them tracing back to Gillian Reece. Was I at last getting a peek at the real woman? Had my unflinching support of the merger with Quatro Press been premature?

  These thoughts were nipped as a sign came into view on the left side of the road. The rustic placard of weathered, silvery barn boards announced with letters fashioned from twisted twigs, DUMONT INSTITUTE OF EASTERN STUDIES. I couldn’t help musing that the name produced an unfortunate acronym.

  Still, it was infinitely more welcoming, at least to my eye, than the sign that had previously hung there, heralding A CHILD’S GARDEN, an unassuming name for a crackpot New Age day school. Shortly after my move to Dumont, I’d had some vicious run-ins with the school’s founder, a lesbian feminist named Miriam Westerman. Though I harbor no ill will for either lesbians or feminists, this gal had taken both concepts over the top and had attempted, through legal channels, to steal my nephew Thad from his home with Neil and me.

  She had failed in that endeavor, and eventually her school had failed as well. Last I heard, she had moved to Washington state, which seems to hold some odd allure for her Wiccan ilk.

  Today, turning into the driveway that led from the road, I felt a twinge of anxiety well up from these sore memories, but my overwhelming emotion was the sheer relief of knowing that Miriam had left town. As the trees lining the drive parted and I pulled into the gravel-paved clearing that served as a parking lot, I saw at a glance that things had indeed changed.

  Everything was now white. The house, the barn, and the old outbuildings that still dotted the original farm property, as well as several newer buildings of spare, utilitarian design, had formerly been painted by Miriam and her cohorts a horrific shade of screaming green, the color of the eco-movement. Now the only green to be seen was that of the surrounding pines. All the buildings—in fact, anything man-made—was purest white (suggestive, I presumed, of inner peace). The paint job was fresh, barely dry, and I wondered wryly how pure it would look after the stormy rigors of a Wisconsin winter.

  Clearly, the institute was not yet up and running, as there were only two vehicles other than mine in the clearing—Esmond’s car, which was white, and an SUV, also white, doubtless Tamra’s. Both were parked near the entrance of the main building. Cutting the engine and leaving my car, I crossed the clearing, checking my pockets for pen and notebook. My shoes ground the dusty gravel as I approached the building; then my footfalls fell silent as I stepped up to the concrete stoop and opened the front door.

  Pausing inside a small vestibule, I first noticed the smell of paint—it was fresh—then noticed quiet music drifting through the main hall. Vaguely Eastern, the droning, minimalist melody created a woozy mood reminiscent of the psychedelic days of my college years, like something I’d heard beyond distant, closed doors of anonymous dorm rooms. All that was missing was the smell of pot.

  Following the music in search of its source, I walked the hall softly and turned down an adjoining corridor, feeling decidedly stealthy. But I wasn’t trying to sneak up on anyone; rather, the aura of the setting, reinforced by the music, seemed to demand a respectful silence, as in a church. It would have been unthinkably boorish to call out, Anybody home?

  Passing several rooms, I looked inside and saw that each was still in disarray, with books, supplies, and whatnot heaped in corrugated boxes. Shabby furnishings shoved against the walls suggested a library in one room, an office in another, a classroom in a third. Other rooms, however, were clean, stark, and bare of furnishings, with no apparent purpose.

  It was such a room wherein the music played. Stopping in the hall outside the open doorway, I was tempted to rap on the jamb or clear my throat to discreetly announce my presence. Glancing inside, however, I abandoned this notion as too intrusive.

  The music was playing from a boom box in the corner of the room. In the middle of the bare floor, Esmond lay on a small rubber mat, faceup, with his left knee contorted to touch the floor on his right side. He wore stretchy gray pajamas similar to the suit he had worn that morning in Neil’s office; the workout togs were only slightly less flattering than the suit. Next to him crouched a woman in white leotards. With her back to me, she reached to help Esmond stretch his limbs into various positions, all of which looked plenty painful, but Esmond looked downright serene. What was next, I
wondered, a bed of nails?

  No, next Esmond rolled away from me, facedown, and pointed his butt upward until he had formed a perfect inverted V, with hands and feet flat on the floor. When Esmond froze in this position, the woman moved out of her crouch and stood on her hands, pulling her legs and torso into a ball that seemed to float above her elbows. It was all quite impressive, in a perverse sort of way, and I wondered how long they could hold these bizarre positions. Aware that yoga poses generally have poetic, descriptive names, I wondered what inventive monikers applied to these particular contortions. Squatting dog? Bloated crane?

  And my cell phone went off.

  The woman crumpled to her knees and Esmond collapsed onto his mat as I fumbled to retrieve the phone from my pocket, mortified. “A thousand apologies,” I sputtered, sounding farcically Mesopotamian. As they helped each other up, I hissed into the phone, “Yes?”

  “Hey, Mark, is that you?”

  “Neil?” Imagining some dire emergency, I turned into the hall, asking, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He laughed. “What’s that freaky music?”

  “I’ll explain to you later; I’m in the middle of something. Why did you call?”

  “To ask about dinner. Todd Draper phoned. He can’t get away till after five, so he’ll be arriving late tonight. Said he’d eat along the way somewhere, so we’re on our own. I can cook, if you want.”

  “Sure, Neil, that’s fine. Whatever you like, okay?”

  Sheepishly, he noted, “I’m interrupting, huh?”

  I allowed a quiet laugh. “You are, in fact. Sorry to be short with you, but I can’t talk.”

  “Understood. Later, Mark.”

  “Bye, kiddo.” I slipped the phone into my pocket and turned back to the room, where the woman had just turned off the boom box. Esmond was walking toward me with a big smile, hand extended in welcome. “Esmond,” I said, “I feel like a fool. I came looking for you, but didn’t want to intrude on your session—then the damn phone rang.”