The house on Hawthorne Lane had been torn down years ago, replaced by a newer, bigger, no doubt uglier model. The original residents were long gone, and judging by the FOR SALE sign and uninhabited look, the current own ers had already packed their bags. I did the next best thing.
“You’re not really here about the landscaping, are you?” Dina Fifield had seen through me five minutes into my visit.
“No, ma’am. Not entirely.”
“Please don’t ‘ma’am’ me. Not unless you’re from the South, which I suspect you aren’t.”
When I called Mrs. Fifield, she agreed to see me right away. It was only after I hung up that I realized she thought I was moving in on the gardening business recently vacated by Guido Chiaramonte. The guy hadn’t been dead for forty- eight hours. Now I knew where Win got his ambition; these people wasted no time.
“Win does it all the time, of course. Ma’ams people. As I said, unless you’re from the South, or running for office, it’s unacceptable. After the age of forty, women hate it. You’ll hate it in about four or five years, won’t you, dear?” she said, with one glance, assessing my age, weight, and economic status.
And I’ll hate you in about four or five minutes, I thought. Dina Fifield had to be sixty- five but looked forty-five. Very slim, spray- tanned, and highlighted by masters, she was dressed in a form- fitting tennis dress that would have done any of the current crop of tennis nymphets proud. Gossips claimed the Nalgene water bottle she was never seen without was filled with gin; if they were right, it didn’t seem to be doing her any harm.
“So, at the risk of being rude, if you’re not here about the garden, why are you here?”
“I’d be delighted to discuss your landscaping needs,” I lied, “but you’re right-there is something else I was hoping to speak with you about. Have you read any of the articles in the Springfield Bulletin about a missing girl named Yoly Rivera? She was last seen-”
“Yes, yes, I know… ‘Where is my daughter?’ So you’re the one who lit a fire under Jon Chappell. Andrew Chappell’s boy. Cute kid, but a classic under-achiever.”
I kept talking. “Yoly Rivera worked as a cleaning lady in this neighborhood about thirty years ago. I thought you might remember her.”
“Are you serious? I don’t remember my cleaning lady from thirty days ago. They come and go. They make a little money and go back home to live like queens.”
I’d thought the same thing myself, but cringed at hearing it from Dina Fifield. “Not this one. She wrote her family that she met a rich man who was going to take care of her.”
“What was she supposed to write? ‘I’m in a low-paying, boring job; my boyfriend slaps me around; and I cry myself to sleep every night?’ Look, I get a name, a phone number, and a few references. That’s it. I’m grateful if they show up and don’t steal anything. I don’t adopt them.
“Now let me ask you something,” she said. “Why are you asking these questions and not the police?”
“I guess they’ve got their hands full with Guido’s murder.”
She softened the tiniest bit. “Yes, it’s terrible. Guido was the best I’ve ever had,” she said nostalgically. “Gardener, that is. I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s so hard to find a good man.”
Thank god I didn’t really want this heartless bitch as a client.
“He worked here for over thirty years. He used to say it would take another twenty years to get the garden the way he wanted it. Of course, he was a terrible flirt.”
The way she said it made me think Guido didn’t always strike out.
“He just rang my doorbell one day, not unlike you. I’d seen him around town, of course. How could you miss him? I know what you’re thinking. But thirty years ago he was quite dashing. Thick, dark hair; chiseled body; smooth as Carrara marble. Probably from lifting so much of it. Men around here don’t lift anything heavier than a golf club, if they can pay someone else to do it. When you meet a man like that, that’s the way he always looks to you-no matter how fat or banged- up he gets.” The old softie sipped from her Nalgene bottle and led me through the French doors to her garden.
“We can walk around the property, and if you’re seriously interested, we’ll make a real appointment.” She pointedly checked the time. “I have thirty- five minutes until my court time, so you have fifteen. Shall we?”
No wonder Guido said he needed another twenty years. A large square, it was bordered on all sides by mature trees and squared- off English yews. Between the yews and the enormous, high- maintenance lawn, useful for touch football photo ops, Guido probably guaranteed himself a weekly maintenance gig for life. And then there was the fountain.
That first summer, Guido sold Mrs. Fifield on the idea of an Italian marble fountain. Eager to see Guido with his shirt off, Dina agreed. That’s how I came to be standing eyeball to marble penis with an oversized Roman god who, from a certain angle, looked like Guido and appeared to be ejaculating twenty feet into the air. No doubt one of his little jokes.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“It’s remarkable,” I said, failing to come up with any other word for the twenty- by- twenty- foot marble excrescence in front of me. Roman gods and sea monsters cavorted incongruously with wood nymphs, satyrs, and assorted animals. Four angels with long trumpets stood in each corner, and the entire fountain was surrounded by a collection of statues that seemed to be haphazardly assembled for a fire sale. Despite the occasional lapses into good taste, the end result was more Pizza Napoli than Piazza Navona.
“Guido designed it. I hated it, too, in the beginning,” she said, admiring it as if for the first time. “There are twenty- seven separate statues. Guido just kept piling them on all that summer.” She laughed.
He probably got a nice kickback from the marble supplier, I thought. “When was the fountain installed?” I asked politely, steering myself away from any conversation that might require me to comment on its beauty.
“Oh dear, it was so long ago.” She took another swig from the water bottle, to refresh her memory.
“Let’s see, it was the summer my late husband was away so much. In Washington, D.C., of all places… in the summer. He was an attorney, and something was going on. The Peacocks were having work done in their garden, and the street was a terrible mess-dust and trucks everywhere… it was chaos. Anyway, Guido and I decided we might as well do it. Put the fountain in, that is,” she said coyly.
“Was that when Congressman Fifield got interested in politics?”
“Win? He’s not even that interested now, other than getting reelected. He couldn’t have been less interested back then. That was the year he graduated from prep school. He spent the whole summer chasing ass in Maine, at our summer house. Oh dear, I’ve shocked you.”
“What year was that?” I said, ignoring her crude remark.
“Who remembers? They grow up so fast. Ask that mousy little thing who works for him. She’s probably got all his old report cards filed.”
Another stolen glance at her watch told me I’d exceeded my fifteen minutes.
“I can drop off some garden books if you like, to give you some ideas,” I said, finishing up.
“Would you? I’d adore that. Just leave them with the house keeper if I’m not in. Any fresh ideas for the garden would be wonderful. There are just so many times you can redecorate the houses.”
The lady of the manor dismissed me and I headed next door. Walking slowly, I stole a last glance back at the fountain and found myself thinking I should go for the job. It would be a service to the community to destroy such an atrocious thing.