Mystery

“Imagine that,” said Mrs. Spence. “Do you think there is any champagne on this flight? I think champagne would be just right, don’t you?”

Mr. Spence pulled in his belly, stood up, and went to the curtained galley.

When a bottle of beer, two glasses of orange juice, and an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne sat on the table, Mrs. Spence raised her glass and said, “Here’s to summer!” They all drank.

“Have you known Ralph Redwing long?” Tom asked.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Spence, and “Not really,” said Mr. Spence, more or less simultaneously. They looked at each other with differing degrees of irritation.

“Well, of course, we’ve moved in the same circles ever since Mr. Spence took over Corporate Accounting for Ralph,” said Mrs. Spence. “But we’ve only really become close in the past two or three years. You’d have to say that Buddy and Sarah brought us together, and we’re very happy about that. Very happy.”

“You do all the accounting work for the Redwing Holding Company?” Tom asked.

“Not by a long shot,” Mr. Spence said. “I handle the work for the can company, the real estate holdings, the brewery, a few other odds and ends. Keeps me hopping. Above me, there’s the General Accountant, the man I report to, and then the Vice-President for Accounting, above him.”

“So you do the accounting work relating to Elysian Courts and the old slave quarter?”

Mr. Spence nodded. “It’s all revenue.”

“I never saw any champagne that came in a clear bottle before,” said Mrs. Spence, refilling her glass. “Doesn’t it spoil that way, or something?”

“You might not know this,” Mr. Spence said, “but your grandfather did me a big favor once. Your grandfather is the reason I work for Ralph now.”

“Oh, yes?”

“I come from Iowa, orginally, and Mrs. Spence and I met in college there. When we got married, she wanted to live back on Mill Walk, where she was from. So I came down here and got a job with your grandfather. We had a nice little place out in Elm Cove. In ten years, I was doing about half his total accounting work—your grandfather does everything by the seat of his pants, you know—and we could get our house on The Sevens.”

“One of the oldest houses in the far east end,” said Mrs. Spence.

“Hadn’t been lived in for better than twenty years. Like a museum in there when we moved in. Couple years later, he sold us our lodge—same deal. Sealed up since hell froze over. Anyhow, once we had the lodge, we came in contact a lot more with Ralph and his bunch. And when Ralph dropped into my office one day and said he’d like to give me a job, your grandfather gave me his blessings.” He finished off his first beer while he spoke. “So everything worked out just right, you could say.”

“Didn’t a man named Anton Goetz own that house?”

“Nope. He worked for your grandfather—made a lot of money too! For an accountant, I mean. The actual ownership of the place was held by a shadow corporation that was part of Mill Walk Construction, if you looked hard enough. Same was true of our lodge. Saved a few pennies in taxes that way, I guess.”

“I thought I heard once that Goetz owned the St. Alwyn Hotel,” Tom said.

“He might have said he did, and he might have been listed here and there as the owner, but your grandfather still owns the St. Alwyn. In conjunction with Ralph, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” Tom said. “And I guess my grandfather owns part of Elysian Courts.”

“And the old slave quarter. Sure. Way back when, Glendenning Upshaw and Maxwell Redwing pretty much divided up the island. All on the up and up, of course. So Glen and Ralph are pretty much partners in a lot of things these days. There’s a lot of overlap in my work.”

“That’s enough talk about business,” said Mrs. Spence. “I didn’t come on this plane to hear about the slums of Mill Walk and who owns what. Sarah is going away to college in the fall … Tom”—it seemed difficult for her to utter his name—“we all thought that a year or two of college at a good school would help prepare her for the life we want her to have. I had two years of college myself, and that was all I needed. Of course”—she looked coyly at her daughter—“if she transfers out to Arizona, which is a wonderful school too, things might look different.”

“Tom and I are going on an excursion together, Mother,” Sarah said. “We are going to explore the back of this plane, and see if hidden recording devices have been placed in the ashtrays.” She took Tom’s hand and stood up.

“It’s an interesting fact,” said Mr. Spence, “that no Redwing I ever heard of ever married a woman who didn’t come from his own crowd. They all marry people they’ve known most of their lives. That’s how they keep that dynasty going. And I’ll tell you another interesting fact”—he winked at Tom—“they all marry pretty women.”

“And they find them at the pretty women discount outlet,” Sarah said. She tugged Tom away from the table.

She stopped at the bar, and the steward leaned forward. “What do pretty women drink? What’s a pretty drink?”

“Watch yourself, Sarah,” her mother said.