Manor of Dying

Chapter 1

As we approached the jagged rocks crowning the rough waters like menacing shark fins, I took a moment to reconsider what I’d signed up for. What had I been thinking when my friend Elle asked me to go to Shelter Island in the middle of winter to inventory a former mental asylum and the site of a grisly sixty-year-old murder?"

I know what.

Count me in!

My interior design business, Cottages by the Sea, had been on a short hiatus. It seemed no one relished trekking out to the easternmost tip of Long Island to choose sofa fabric during the coldest December on record. I couldn’t blame them and kept busy decorating my own cottage. It had been slow going, but it was paramount that every nook and cranny should turn out the way I’d envisioned. And it had.

Now that I’d finally moved into my oceanfront nest on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic, I savored the peace and tranquility of having the small town of Montauk to myself. Winter afforded us locals, as I now considered myself, more breathing room. No tourists, no traffic, and best of all no one traipsing on my beach. Give me a crackling fire in my stone fireplace, a mystery novel in my hand as I looked out the window toward the Montauk Point Lighthouse, fat cat Jo sitting by my feet, occasionally biting them when I moved without warning, and I was cozily happy until spring’s thaw.

The ferry lurched forward. I glanced over at Elle, noticing her white-knuckled grip on the pickup’s steering wheel. Relax. You can’t change the trajectory of the ferry. It’s only a short ride.

I’ll relax when we reach the island’s shore and we drive off this thing. I’d hate to be on board during a hurricane or snowstorm.

Looking out the truck’s windshield I saw a different picture of the bay than I had when I’d stayed at Sag Harbor’s Bibliophile Bed & Breakfast last August. The Hamptons was another animal in the winter months. Most of the boats at the yacht club were hibernating in dry dock or had set their course for the warm waters of the Caribbean. The shoreline disappeared behind us and all I saw ahead were choppy steel-gray waters. Pellets of sleet rat-tat-tatted against the windshield in Morse code—D A N G E R—blurring our approach to the south shore of the island. So much for the break in precipitation the weather forecasters had promised.

Elle gripped the wheel tighter. As a distraction, I asked, How many times have you been to Nightingale Manor?

Once. The estate and grounds are really magnificent.

Secluded Nightingale Manor had been chosen as the location to film a premium-channel miniseries, Mr. & Mrs. Winslow. Set in the late 1930s, the series was being touted as following in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett’s Thin Man movies, and like those it featured a wisecracking, madly-in-love husband-and-wife detecting team, private-eye Jack Winslow and newlywed Lara, Jack’s former gal Friday at the East Side Detective Agency. After Jack inherits a fortune from his great-uncle, the couple move from the Lower East Side of Manhattan to a mansion on Long Island and find themselves solving murders committed by the area’s high-society elite.

Elle and I were given the task of inventorying the items from Nightingale Manor to be used in the filming. We’d also be assisting the set designer in recreating the series’ 1930s time period.

Using my sleeve to rub a hole in the frosted passenger’s window, I said, From what I’ve seen in old photos on the internet, the mansion looks dark and dreary, very much like a haunted mental asylum. What fun.

Fun? Meg Barrett! Don’t even think about it! Haven’t you had enough death for a lifetime? We have a job to do. Don’t need any distractions. Leave the decades-old murder in the past where it belongs. Elle had been growing out her dark brown hair from a short pixie style. We were opposites in looks and it was easy to see we weren’t blood related. But we were sisters all the same. I’d felt a kinship from the first day I met her at American Home and Garden magazine. We shared the same passion for collecting and decorating. And getting in trouble.

I liked Elle’s new, more mature look; it went along with her recent status of being engaged to Detective Arthur Shoner, top brass at the East Hampton Town PD. My father was a retired homicide detective on the Detroit PD. Now we both had ties to law enforcement. Something that came in handy when involved in murder investigations—as we’d both found out the hard way.

Elle continued, I think you’ll be surprised when you see what Nightingale Manor looks like in the twenty-first century compared to when it was a private sanitorium. The stone façade’s been sandblasted, and I can only imagine the grounds in the springtime. There’s even 180-degree water views from almost every window.

Aha! If you knew what the mansion looked like when the murder took place, that means you’ve been doing your own snooping.

"I wasn’t digging into the gory murder or perusing haunting photos of the crime scene, as I’m sure you’ve been doing. I just wanted to search the internet for any interior shots of Nightingale Manor from back in the day. Felicity, Mr. & Mrs. Winslow’s set designer, told me a good portion of the old furnishings have been stored away in unused parts of the mansion. Of which there are many. By the way, thanks for telling me about the old murder. I would’ve preferred to wear blinders."

Did you meet Dr. Blake Nightingale?

Who? she asked, turning on the truck’s wipers to keep a sheet of ice from forming on the windshield.

The current owner of Nightingale Manor. Southampton’s premier cosmetic surgeon—his clientele, the Hamptons elite. He’s the grandson of the doctor who started Nightingale Manor Sanitorium in the late 1920s.

No. Besides Felicity, I only met the housekeeper, Willa.

There’s a recent scandal involving him that I found pretty interesting.

Go on.

"He was the star of a hit reality television series, Bungled. The show centered on patients whose cosmetic surgeries had gone awry, sometimes maiming them and leaving them worse than they were before they went under the knife. Dr. Blake, as he was called on the show, apparently fixed bungled cosmetic surgeries while a camera crew looked on. ‘Bungled to Beautiful’ was the show’s tagline. Bungled was a moneymaker until an unhappy client showed what her face looked like a month after filming. All the Botox and filler injections wore off, not to mention she’d gotten a nasty eyelid infection that made her look like Rocky in Rocky II. Dr. Blake had lied that she’d had successful corrective surgery. He’d done his own bungling and tried to cover it up with injectables."

There’s something so wrong with that on so many levels, Elle said.

"I agree. You ever see Bungled? I know you’re a big reality TV fan."

"Not that kind of reality. Only home-and-garden, antiques and fixer-upper shows. Is Bungled still on the air? I want to know so I can block it. Women need to own their wrinkles and laugh lines, so they don’t get bungled in the first place."

Even though the patient who is suing had signed a nondisclosure agreement, the network yanked the show off midseason.

I’m sure the doctor’s scandal won’t have any bearing on the filming of the miniseries. I’m so excited we were brought in to help with the set for the first episode. Jack and Lara Winslow come to Jack’s great-uncle’s estate for Christmas.

Let me guess, the great-uncle gets murdered and Jack is the beneficiary of his fortune?

That would be my guess from what the set designer has told me, Elle said. We’re only hired to work on the pilot episode, but if we do good, I hope we’ll be asked back for the other seven in the first season. The time period is in my wheelhouse.

What time period before nineteen-eighty isn’t? I asked, smiling.

Look who’s calling the kettle black. And you know what a fan I am of the movies from the late thirties. Especially the Thin Man films. I picture myself as Myrna Loy and Arthur as William Powell.

Of course you do. Maybe you can talk Detective Shoner into a small mustache?

You can call him Arthur. Especially now we’re engaged.

He’ll always be Detective Shoner to me. I’ve tried to call him Arthur, it just won’t stick. If it wasn’t for me, you two wouldn’t have met.

"If it wasn’t for you and the murder of the Queen of the Hamptons, Caroline Spenser. But you’re right. It seems all roads lead to murder in the Hamptons. Especially if you’re involved." The ferry hit a huge wave head-on and our heads jerked backward.

I should have checked what hotels on Shelter Island are open off-season. Making this commute in the winter . . . Elle moaned.

Because my hat covered my ears I’d missed her last words. Even if I took it off, I wouldn’t be able to hear what she was saying over the roar of wind and the ferry’s engines unless she faced me, then I could read her lips. Something I’d been doing since my teens when I was first diagnosed with a hearing loss.

Your commute is a breeze from Sag Harbor, I said. I’ve got a forty-five-minute drive from Montauk, longer if the roads are bad.

Elle looked at me, worry in her dark brown eyes. I can do this alone. I’ll bring Maurice. He’s dying to come.

Maurice was her longtime assistant, who’d been working at the shop from when Elle’s great-aunt Mabel was alive. Then who’ll watch Mabel and Elle’s Curiosities? I asked.

Her shop was an eclectic vintage and antiques shop on the first level of an old Victorian whaling captain’s house in Sag Harbor. It was also the first place I shopped for special items to put in my clients’ cottages. Elle even allowed me full use of her carriage house to work on my refurbishing projects.

Before my mother’s death from breast cancer when I was thirteen, my mother owned a thriving antiques shop in Michigan called Past Perfect. I can still remember my father letting me pick out things from the shop to bring back to our house in Detroit. After I moved to New York and attended NYU, I continued my obsession with home décor and got a job at a home and garden magazine, working my way up to editor in chief. The magazine was where I met the antiques-and-collectibles editor Elle Warner. One cheating ex-fiancé later, I fled Manhattan for Montauk and the peace and tranquility only the sea and salt life could offer. Much to my delight, after Elle’s great-aunt left her everything in her will, Elle moved to the Hamptons full-time. Now we were both pursuing the things we loved. The only difference was that Great-aunt Mabel left Elle very wealthy. I, on the other hand, basically lived hand to mouth, or should I say client to client. Which was one of the reasons I jumped at the chance to help Elle at Nightingale Manor.

The shop’s only open Saturday and Sunday, Elle said. Not many people out shopping for antiques or vintage in the winter. Seriously, I don’t want to worry about you driving to Sag Harbor in bad weather.

I’ll be fine. Especially in my new Wagoneer. Eyes on the road! I mean water, I said to Elle.

Funny, har, har. I’ll be happy when I can drive off and hit the roads before they’re covered in ice. We’re only staying for two hours. Tops. We can’t miss the last ferry back. Plus, I have someone picking up that armoire we worked on and I’m counting on you to pull me back in case I get sidetracked digging through all the treasures.

Aye, aye, Captain Warner. So, you ready to hear about the murder?

Go ahead. Get it out of your system. It’ll distract me from that incoming wave about to tip us over.

Last night, when I came by to purchase a book of ferry tickets to save on our trips back and forth to the island, I got to talking to my new best friend, our ferry captain Chris Boyd. He was a wealth of Shelter Island and Nightingale Manor information. Little did Elle know that since she’d called me a couple weeks ago, I’d been researching everything I could about the future location for the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Winslow. I’d stumbled upon an old article in the East Hampton Star about the murder that took place in the early 1950s, and from there I was off to the races.

Am I sure I want to hear this? Elle said, grabbing my wrist as the ferry plowed through another white-capped wave and she went sliding across the vintage pickup’s bench seat.

Don’t worry. Captain Chris said they’ve never shut down the ferry, no matter what the weather. He’s been doing this run from Sag Harbor to Shelter Island for over fifty years and never missed a day.

And that’s a good thing? Elle asked. Sounds kind of reckless to me.

Shall I continue?

Can I stop you?

"Here goes. Nightingale Manor had been a getaway of sorts for the Hamptons rich and famous suffering from an assortment of maladies. When it first opened in the late 1920s as a private retreat, no one used the words asylum or sanitorium. It wasn’t until the 1940s that they were forced to get accreditation in order to perform electroshock therapy and lobotomies. Then the name changed to Nightingale Manor Sanitorium. Before the forties, the public was under the impression that Nightingale Manor was a luxury resort for Manhattan’s vacationing elite to hide when they needed a rest between projects. In reality, the small hospital sequestered patients in private suites where they could safely have their nervous breakdowns or dry out from their last alcoholic or drug binges under a doctor’s care. That doctor was Tobias Nightingale."

Cosmetic surgeon Dr. Blake Nightingale’s father or grandfather, I’d guess? Elle interjected.

Grandfather.

I wonder if the production crew and actors know about Nightingale’s notorious past?

Doubt it. I had to do a lot of digging before I could find anything about it. Most likely the reason the current Dr. Blake didn’t change the name of the estate. Remember, Nightingale Manor Sanitorium was an exclusive, private asylum. From my research, back in the day it was very easy for relatives to commit their family members without their say and there was little hope of them ever returning home. Thankfully, times have changed.

And procedures have changed, too, Elle said. No more lobotomies.

True. Although shock therapy is still being used, sometimes with good results.

Look, I see the dock. Hurry. Give me a quick recap of the murder so I can focus on other things, like meeting the actors playing Jack and Lara.

At the beginning of the 1950s, two feuding actresses came to the asylum, Arden Hunter and Marian Fortune.

"Great-aunt Mabel and Edith Head did some of the costumes for the 1949 film The Flame and the Moth that they starred in, Elle said. I even have a dress from the movie." Elle’s deceased great-aunt had been an assistant to the famous midcentury costume designer Edith Head. When Aunt Mabel passed away she left tons of clothing, sketches, and movie memorabilia to Elle.

Excitement flushed Elle’s cheeks. Aunt Mabel told me Arden Hunter and Marian Fortune loved to fight in front of the press but were really best friends on set. Like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

Well, best friends don’t murder each other, do they? I wonder what went wrong?

You know, on second thought, Elle said, keep the gory details to yourself. I don’t like the look of that sky. Let’s keep focused on our task at hand so we can catch the four o’clock ferry back to Sag Harbor.

Don’t you want to know what happened?

Oh, go on. I’m sure if you don’t, what my imagination could come up with would be worse than what really happened. She let out a full-body shiver.

Dr. Tobias Nightingale was in the middle of Arden Hunter’s lobotomy, ice pick in hand, when Marian Fortune, also a patient, grabbed it from his hand and stuck it straight in Arden’s heart.

How barbaric! What happened to Marian Fortune?

She was sent to a state mental hospital shortly after, and the Nightingale Manor Sanitorium closed its doors for good.

A lobotomy. That wasn’t common practice, was it?

I researched it, President Kennedy’s sister Rosemary had one in the forties. The procedure quickly lost favor after numerous deaths and no proof it helped the patient’s mental state.

Ugh. Time for a change of subject. Thankfully we’re pulling into shore. It seems crazy they’d pick the middle of winter to film a miniseries. And of all places, on an island. They must have a big budget.

Now that the Hamptons season includes spring, summer and fall, it was probably the only time they could shoot without fanfare. Most other movies and series that film out here are also filmed in late fall, winter, or early spring.

That reminds me. Did I tell you they want to use one of Cole’s yachts for filming in the early spring? I called him. He seemed skeptical but willing. I’m sure you can convince him. They’re offering a bucketful of cash for just a couple weeks of shooting.

Cole doesn’t need money. He’s a Spenser. Remember? Cole Spenser and I had been dating on and off for over a year, trying to keep our long-distance relationship going. I’d fly down to North Carolina when I could, and he would fly up to New York. Cole owned a company called Plantation Island Yachts. He refurbished vintage sailing yachts, many of which had won the America’s Cup, then brokered them to wealthy clients around the world. Usually, when one of his clients purchased a yacht, Cole and his first mate, Tripod, his three-legged dog, would hand deliver the yacht to whatever location the buyer desired.

Well, it will keep him nearby for at least a few weeks. Maybe he’ll pop the question and you can join me. We can plan our weddings together. She flashed me her left hand, showing a dazzling engagement ring.

Last month I’d met Detective Shoner at an estate jewelry shop on Madison Avenue and helped him pick out a ring for Elle. Elle would never go for something new, as proven by the assortment of costume jewelry brooches left to her by Great-aunt Mabel that she wore every day.

Cole and I are nowhere near that stage in our relationship, I said. Have you set a date? I was trying to distract Elle from the now-thick flakes of snow whiting out our view.

No, I only got the ring a week ago. But I thought the walled garden at your cottage might be a perfect place for a May wedding? For the first time since we’d driven onto the ferry, Elle wore a happy face.

Indeed, it would, I said, grinning back at her.

The ferry pulled to the dock on the south shore of the island. We waited until the ramp was lowered, then Elle drove off. I waved at Captain Chris, who stood onshore wearing a puffy down-filled parka, snowflakes gathering on his bushy white Fu Manchu mustache. He resembled a walrus as he tipped his captain’s hat in our direction, and we set out for Nightingale Manor.

I gazed to my right at the water as lightning ripped open the dark sky. Thunder soon followed. Mother Nature seemed resolute in unloading everything she had.

Oh, no! Elle screeched. A sign. An omen. Should we turn around?

I looked behind us at the South Shelter Island Ferry pulling away.

Too late. At least the snow stopped falling, I said in a hopefully upbeat tone.

Concentrating on the slick road, Elle kept silent as we headed west along the shoreline. We passed by quaint restaurants and small shops, all closed for the season. I’d tried to distract Elle by telling her about the Shelter Island clambake I’d gone to with Cole and Tripod last summer. Who would have thought a dog would love smoked oysters?

Dead silence. She kept her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, her focus on what little there was to see of the narrow two-lane highway through the now-pounding rain. When we reached the entrance to Nightingale Manor the thunder boomed so loud the vibration traveled up my spine. I worried Neptune’s lightning-charged trident might zap the pickup into the bay.

In retrospect, maybe Mother Nature had been giving us a warning . . .

Chapter 2

We turned onto the long drive that fronted Nightingale Manor, passing a small gatehouse that was still three times the size of my cottage. Elle had been right, Nightingale Manor looked nothing like it had in the online black-and-white photographs taken at the time of the murder. It seemed friendlier, except there was still something creepy about the numerous mullioned casement windows that made me wonder if at one time they’d been reinforced with steel bars. I counted four chimneys and numerous spires. The stone façade gave the mansion the look of an English manor house. Most of the homes and buildings in the Hamptons area, Shelter Island included, used early colonial architecture in the Federal style. I was sure Elle was right—in the spring the green landscape would soften the look of the cold stone building. For now, I tried to wipe out the old images of what the