Read Online Secret Combinations by Gordon Cope - Free Book Online Page B

a job in San Francisco. I have to go back.”
    â€œI see.” The woman wiped her hands in her apron and turned back to the stove.
    Kenyon stopped eating. He suddenly realized that, in effect, he was now Señora Santucci’s employer, and it was up to him to decide her future. He didn’t know what to say. “How long did you work for Lydia?” he finally asked.
    â€œFour years.”
    â€œWhere did you work before that?”
    â€œIngoldsby Manor.”
    â€œYou worked for Ilsa?”
    Santucci sat down at the nook table, across from Kenyon. “I no want to, but I have a bad husband. He has the hot Italian blood. He get drunk and beat me, so I go away and work in the country.”
    â€œWhat was Ilsa like?”
    â€œShe very bad. She say, ‘You do what I want, or I send you back to your husband.’ I am so worried, my hair fall out.”
    Kenyon shook his head in sympathy. “That’s awful.”
    Santucci nodded. “One day, your auntie, she come to the Manor, she see me sad. She say, ‘Why you cry?’ I tell her, my mistress is bad.”
    Kenyon was intrigued. “What did she do?”
    â€œMiss Lydia give me a job and a place to stay that very day. She very sweet, like an auntie to me.”
    Kenyon stared down at his unfinished eggs. “You don’t have to go back to your husband, if you don’t want to.”
    Santucci crossed herself. “He is dead.”
    â€œWell, I guess that’s good,” said Kenyon. “Listen, I’ll talk to Tanya. I’m sure there’s someone who needs an excellent housekeeper like you.”
    The woman stood up and began to clear up the pots and pans. “You are very kind, Mister Yack, but don’t you worry about me,” she replied. “I be okay.”
    Kenyon picked up his coffee and left Santucci to the dishes. He wandered down the hall and stood in the living room, staring out the large bay window. He had only been thinking of the physical assets; he hadn’t considered the people in Lydia’s life. How the hell was he supposed to deal with all of that?
    His thoughts were broken by a phone ringing. He looked around the room; a cream-colored desk set sat atop a sideboard. He put down his coffee cup and picked it up. “Hello?”
    â€œHullo. This is Charles Strand from the Morgan dealership calling about your motor car.”
    â€œWhat car?”
    â€œThe Plus 8. Have you decided what you want to do with it?”
    It took a few minutes, but Kenyon finally got the story from the car dealer. Lydia had owned a Morgan sports car, the one she had been killed in. The wreck had been towed back to the dealership and they needed a decision about whether to repair or scrap it.
    â€œHow far are you from Herringbone Gardens?” Kenyon asked.
    â€œAbout four streets south,” replied Strand.
    Kenyon got directions from the manager. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
    The agent walked south until he came to Old Brompton Road. The road was lined with shops; customers bustled in and out of the florists, wine merchants, and bakeries as they did their Saturday morning shopping.
    The Morgan dealership was located on a cobbled alleyway off the main road in what would have been a row of stables a century before. The barn doors had been replaced by modern glass windows, and the interior remodeled into a showroom.
    Kenyon glanced through the windows. Six Morgans sat in the showroom, their paint gleaming in the morning light. They were all convertibles with a design from the 1940s, with long hoods, flaring wheel wells and large, bulging headlamps. Kenyon pictured Lydia in her fluffy pink slippers, puttering around the countryside at thirty miles per hour.
    As Kenyon entered, a short, fat man with a monk’s fringe of hair stepped from behind a desk. “Can I help you?”
    â€œI’m Jack Kenyon. I just had a call from Charles Strand.”
    The man stuck